


The Gunslinger's Code

by tamriels



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 19th Century, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Western, Dark, Dark Sam Winchester, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Family, Flashbacks, Gen, M/M, POV Alternating, Past Character Death, Religious Fanaticism, Romance, Sexual Content, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2019-09-20 07:53:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 39,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17018721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamriels/pseuds/tamriels
Summary: Castiel Novak is a bounty hunter in 19th century America, notorious for his past and the strict code in which he lives by. On his travels, he is hired to find and capture the Winchester Brothers—grave robbers, conmen and murderers—and return them to his employers to be hanged.As simple as this contract seems, it has the power to change everything Castiel thinks he knows about the world, and the men within it.





	1. The Stranger

The small town of Coalfell was winding down for the day. The sun was setting overhead, and the miners were emerging from their caverns underground, faces stained with grime and lungs filled with soot. They followed each other in a single line, too exhausted to speak. The low, rattling breaths of the miners shifted in the still wind, a reminder of death in a dying town.

The roads had quieted, and the curtains had been drawn. No one but the shopkeeper, sweeping the porch outside, saw the man in the brown duster coat ride through on the back of a large grey horse. He tipped his hat at the man politely, and in doing so the man pulled the reigns until the horse had stopped beside him. The shopkeeper peered up at him warily, taking in his cold stare; strangers were hard to come by in a place like Coalfell, and strangers like this, armed and blank-faced, often meant trouble.

“I ain’t seen you round these parts before, mister,” the shopkeeper said, feigning pleasantries, though inwardly cursing himself for leaving his gun inside. “What can I do you for?”

“I need money,” the stranger replied.

The shopkeeper stared at the revolver rested on the man’s hip.

“You lookin’ to rob me?” he asked, as bravely as he could muster.

“Looking for work.”

The shopkeeper studied the stranger again, taking in the soft lines around his eyes, the faint remainder of stubble on his cheeks. Clean, but weathered, he thought, just like his coat, and the saddle he sat upon was worn, the reigns frayed, but the horse itself looked purebred, healthy and strong.

“This is a minin’ town,” he said carefully. “You don’t look the sort."

The stranger broke their gaze, and looked towards the row of buildings that made up the rest of Coalfell.

“There a sheriff’s office here?” he asked.

“Yessir,” the shopkeeper nodded, pointing, “next to the gun shop, just down the way there.”

“Thank you,” said the stranger, and he bucked his feet together, spurring his horse to movement. The shopkeeper watched him go, a million questions running through his mind, but glad he didn’t have to ask them.

The stranger continued slowly on the back of his steed, contemplating the silence of this new town. It wasn't long before he was met with the sign for the gun shop, waving loosely in the wind from a hanging beam. Just as the shopkeeper had said, the sheriff’s office stood beside it. He got off his horse and hitched him at the post, giving him a light pat before turning and walking to the door.

There was a man inside smoking a large pipe, leaning back in his chair with his legs crossed against the table. The stranger did not knock, merely opened the door wide and strode in, as if he were expected. His duster coat wafted behind him, a faint shadow of dust seeping from it in loose coils. The man jumped at the interruption, immediately putting a hand to the gun that was holstered on his right side. The stranger and the man locked eyes, tension already forming and ready to shatter.

“You lost, friend?” the man said, his voice commanding.

“Are you the sheriff?”

“I’m Deputy Victor Henriksen,” the man replied haughtily. “Acting sheriff, as Sheriff White is away on business. Again, I’ll repeat myself: you lost?”

The stranger and the deputy regarded each other with keen interest. Henriksen was a well-built, dark skinned man, with a thin line of finely groomed facial hair around his mouth and chin. His right hand remained rested on the curvature of his weapon, his fingers twitching with the anticipation to duel. His left side, however, was cut short above the elbow, his sleeve neatly folded around the stump that remained.

“I’m looking for work,” was all the stranger said.

Henriksen scowled.

“Go bother Jameson, we’re not hiring here.”

The stranger was not fazed, instead nodded towards something hanging from the far wall.

“That poster; how long you had it up?”

The deputy allowed himself to look away, observing the piece of paper resentfully.

“About a month. Not one bastard will agree to take it on.”

The stranger held out a hand in front of him.

“May I?”

Henriksen shrugged, the grip on his weapon beginning to lessen.

“Sure.”

The stranger walked to the poster and ripped it off the wall. He looked over it slowly.

 

* * *

**WANTED**

**$2,000 REWARD**

**SAM and DEAN WINCHESTER**

**A reward of TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS will be paid for the capture of brothers SAM WINCHESTER and DEAN WINCHESTER, CONFIDENCE MEN and known affiliates of the SONS OF COLT gang, wanted for, but not limited to GRAVE ROBBING, ARMED ROBBERY and MURDER.**

**Consider these men ARMED AND DANGEROUS. They were last seen in the SHADY OAK AREA.**

**All information or reward claims to be addressed to SHERIFF ALASTAIR WHITE, or in his absence DEPUTY VICTOR HENRIKSEN, COALFELL SHERIFF’S OFFICE.**  

* * *

 

The stranger studied the faces of the two men, the illustrations fairly crude but legible enough. The man on the left, Sam, was young, barely out of boyhood, with a clean-shaven face and dark messy hair that fell past his ears. He had a harmless, doe-eyed look to him; as if it were impossible for him to have done the things he was accused of. It was a foolish thought: the stranger knew only too well the evilness of man, for he had seen it many times before. His eyes drifted then, to the illustration on the right. The man drawn next, Dean, was older in years, with a look in his eyes the stranger could more easily understand. His hair was short and light, his jaw pronounced and his lips full. He looked proud, rebellious, his shaded eyes looking right through the stranger in sentience, as if mocking him.

“Don’t let their good looks fool you,” piped Henriksen, interrupting the stranger’s thoughts and letting a stream of thick smoke fill the room. “Those brothers were spat right out of the bowels of hell.”

The stranger’s eyes drifted from the two faces, to the reward printed in large black letters above.

“Two thousand dollars,” he recited. “That’s a lot of money.”

Henriksen scoffed.

“There’s a reason for that. You heard of ‘em?"

“The brothers? No. I’ve heard of the Sons of Colt, though.”

Henriksen scoffed again.

“Everyone’s heard of the Sons of Colt.”

“I thought they were disbanded?” the stranger questioned, ignoring the deputy’s tone.

“Oh, they are. Their leader, John Winchester? He’s been dead going on half a decade. God only knows what happened to the rest of ‘em. His piece of shit sons, though, have carried on his legacy of murder and debauchery.”

Henriksen finished his pipe with a lengthy drag. He put it on the table carelessly, letting the tobacco fall from the end and litter the wood.

“So,” he said with condescension, “fancy yourself a bounty hunter, do you? Reckon you can catch ‘em, bring ‘em back alive?”

The stranger merely blinked.

“I’ve had some practise.”

“Well all right, then,” the deputy said, his single hand waving the stranger out the door. As he turned to leave, however, Henriksen cleared his throat quickly.

“Ah, before you go,” he said conversationally, “what’s your name, fella?”

The stranger sighed.

“What does it matter?”

“I think at least one person should mourn your passing,” the deputy smiled wickedly. “Way I see it, might as well be me.”

“You don’t think I can do it?” asked the stranger, his patience wavering.

The deputy let out a small chuckle, licking his lips in preparation.

“Let me tell you a story, son,” he said. “Two years ago I was working down the Aston area, near Bury—you know it? I heard a woman in the street, crying, screaming bloody murder. Those sons of bitches had robbed the bank her son was working. Killed him, and everyone else inside. Slit their throats, one by one. By the time the men and I gathered arms and stormed the place, they were already fleeing. A few of the men went after ‘em, but I stayed behind with the others. We went inside, through to the back where the vault was. There was a girl there, pretty young thing; she’d been left gagged and hogtied in the corner of the room. When she saw us, she started screaming, thrashing her head around like a rabid dog. We had no idea she was trying to warn us.”

“Warn you of what?”

“Dynamite,” Henriksen answered bluntly, “under her dress. I woke up days later in a hospital bed. Couldn’t even remember what happened until I looked to the side of me and saw this,” he waved his stump limply, his expression one of contrition. “Naturally,” he continued, “I’ve been tracking them ever since, and after years of absolute fuck-all nothin', we get word they’ve been sighted not far from here. I’ll tell ya’,” the deputy laughed, “it was music to my ears. Of course, I wanted to be the one that went after ‘em, but... I must respect the sheriff’s wishes."

The deputy's face had sobered, hardening at his reality.

"So," he said, after a pause, "I remain here, in my cosy little shit-hole, the thirst for revenge gnawing at my soul like rot.”

The stranger raised his brows limply.

“That’s quite the story, Deputy.”

“Well I do like the sound of my own voice,” replied Henriksen, smiling without warmth. “Anyway,” he said, turning his back to the stranger to re-light his pipe. “I won’t keep you. Good luck, Mister…"

“Novak,” the stranger finished indifferently. “Castiel Novak.”

“Wait,” Henriksen said, choking on the smoke. “You’re that—”

But Castiel had shut the door before the deputy could finish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have become obsessed with the western genre as of late (thanks to Westworld and Red Dead Redemption 2) so I'm really excited to be writing this. Apologies in advance for any historical inaccuracies. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the first chapter and would love to know what you thought of it!


	2. The Brothers Grim

The saloon on the outskirts of Dry Gulch had amassed quite the patronage as of late. The brothers Winchester, known to the locals as Wesson, had been frequenting the bar for almost two weeks straight. Dean, the oldest, had taken to gambling with the lively residents, by game of card or dice, and tonight he was on a winning streak. He had surpassed cockiness—drunk on whiskey and his own success—and was merrily upping the stakes with every victory. His younger brother, Sam, watched him from the bar, a glass of liquor in hand that sat half-drunk and forgotten. The locals paid no mind to him; Sam was quiet, sullen, always sober, and with an air of pretension that deemed him unworthy of gaging.

Dean, however, was very popular, even if he had drained the majority of peoples’ pockets. He stood there now, two dice clasped in a clenched fist. He brought them to his mouth, kissed his knuckles, and released.

“Show me seven!” he said, as they rolled across the table. The saloon sat watching with halted breath, eager to believe that this time Dean’s luck would finally end. Their hope was short-lived, however, as the two dice landed solidly on four and three. A collective groan rang from the crowd of men sat around the table, some holding their faces and shaking their heads in disbelief, others simply accepting the result as they began rooting in their pockets for coin.

“That’s five times over!” shouted one of the men, a portly, foul-looking brute with blood and drink stains on his shirt.

Dean merely shrugged.

“Pay up, gentlemen,” he said, his hand outstretched.

All but the large brute complied.

“Wait a minute,” he said, crossing his arms over his bulging stomach. “Double or nothin’, next role lands on eight.”

Dean looked at him, smiling in a lazy, patronising sort of way.

“I hate to take your money, sir.”

The man scowled at this, his ego swelling. Dean liked men like him; quick to irritate, greedy and stupid. He would bet his own wife if it meant a few minutes of fame.

“Just throw the damn thing,” the man said, still glaring.

“Eight, you said?” He picked the dice up off the table and cradled them. “Show me eight, baby.”

He kissed his hand once more and threw them, and for the umpteenth time that night, they landed on a winner.

“Goddammit!”

The man slammed the table with an enclosed fist, hard enough to split the wood, but the rest of the crowd howled with laughter and astonishment.

“What’d I tell ya’?” Dean called over, chuckling. “Magic fingers. Just ask Mabel.”

He urged his head towards a black-haired whore leaning on the stairs, and the saloon erupted again in a chorus of drunken cheer.

Dean did not, in fact, have magic fingers, but instead a system that allowed the dice to land on any combination necessary. He had learnt this trick from a friend of his father’s when he was still a boy, and to this day it had earned him more money than robbing graves and locals had combined. A lead fishing weight was filed down, and the shavings poured into the dice through holes that had been drilled away, to which were then filled over with paint. Then, using a magnet in the ring he wore on his left thumb, Dean would place it against the numbers opposite from those he wished them to land on. The shavings would shift, and act as a weight, making any number, any variation, possible.

To the common fool, Dean _did_ have magic fingers, so Dean was lucky the world was made up of so many of them.

“I’m sorry, buddy,” he said insincerely, patting the loser on the back, “I did warn you.”

The man shrugged Dean off fiercely, almost knocking over his drink.

“Wipe that fuckin’ smirk off your face,” he fumed, his hands clenched into fists.

Sam watched the debacle from his place at the bar, only too aware of his brother’s tendency to get under people’s skin. He downed his drink in one quick swallow that left his throat burning, and went over to Dean.

“Let’s go,” he whispered in his brother’s ear, placing a hand on his shoulder. Dean shrugged him off.

“Not without my money,” he said, looking down at the stout man, his expression shifting to one of hostility. “Double or nothing, you said. Now, to save you the trouble of working it out all on your lonesome, you owe me fifty.”

The man stood up so quickly he caught the underside of the table and lurched it forwards.

“You think you’re a funny guy, don’t you?”

“Me,” replied Dean nonchalantly, “and everyone else here laughing.”

The man looked around him. He could see he was being made a fool of; the men around them were indeed laughing at his expense. He calmed himself momentarily, spreading his mouth at Dean into a toothless grin.

“Tell ya’ what,” he said. “Let’s up the stakes a little.”

“Oh, yeah?”

The man nodded.

“Roll a twelve, I give you a hundred dollars. Any less, and the money’s mine.” He paused for a moment, looking Dean from head to toe.

“And, I get your boots,” he finished smugly.

Dean chuckled, cracking his knuckles.

“Okay.”

“And you’ll use _my_ dice.”

Dean’s face fell—just a little—but before anyone but Sam could notice, the brazen glimmer in his eye had returned.

“Now you’re talkin’.”

Sam’s chest tightened. He would lose. He would lose, and have no money to show for it. Then they would have to escape, use their guns if necessary; maybe even kill a couple innocent fools in the process. Their faces would be put up around town, a price agreed—and they would have to pack up and leave again, to the next county, the next town, eventually repeating the process all over again.

Sam tried a final time to get through to his brother.

“Dean,” he pleaded quietly, “you don’t have a hundred dollars. Let’s go before you get yourself killed.”

“No, Sammy, I got it.” He shrugged Sam off and called over to the stairs. “Get over here, Mabel, give ol’ Magic Fingers a kiss for good luck!”

The whore giggled and wandered over. Dean tapped a finger to his cheek, and as Mabel puckered and leaned towards him, he turned his face quickly so the kiss landed squarely on his lips.

The saloon roared with catcalls and whistles, but Sam only watched, his hands edging towards the gun strapped to his side. He would kill the whole saloon if he had to. He knew he could; he’d done it before.

Dean took the man’s dice, held them in both hands as he placed them towards his lips in routine, and finally threw them across the table.

“Show me twelve, baby!” he said, the entire saloon staring at the dice in animated silence.

The first one landed on six immediately. The second rolled further across the table, spinning with chaotic reel. It began to settle, the edges dancing in uncertainty. For one, sick moment, the dice looked to be balanced perfectly on its rim, the number six close yet tauntingly unattainable. Sam had his hand on the revolver, ready to use it at a moment’s notice. Dean was staring at the remaining dice so fiercely; it were as if sheer willpower alone was enough to deliver providence.

Minutes, it seemed like, waiting for that damned dice to land, and Sam could see the future playing out before his very eyes. He noted the position of each man, how drunk they were, who was visibly holding. He noted the shotgun above the bar and wondered if it was loaded. He would kill the fat man first, right between the eyes; the bartender next. He would use the bar as cover, reload and fire, maybe give the shotgun a try. He had the whole thing figured out—the Dry Gulch massacre—and then, Sam’s thoughts were ended, in blissful finale: the dice quivered decisively and landed on the number six.

Sam let out a breath he did not even know he’d been holding. Maybe the lucky son of a bitch did have magic fingers, after all.

“Fellers,” his brother yelled, his hands rose to the air in victory, “drinks are on me!”

A rowdy cheer erupted throughout the saloon. Dean laughed as the men slapped his back in merit, and the bartender started pouring shots.

Sam slipped away before he was noticed.

It was a short ride to her window. He left his horse tethered to the stable and made his way to the house, careful to avoid any of the workers who had not yet retired for the night. As he reached it, he picked up a pebble from the ground and threw it upwards. After a moment, the curtains were pulled and a window opened. She smiled down at him, placing a finger to her lips to make sure he was quiet.

Sam made the climb, as he had done every night for the past ten days. He picked himself up on to the roof hip that overlooked the porch, grabbed at the drip edge and the ivy that veiled the wood, and brought himself higher with two heaves until he was level with the window ledge. He felt her hand enclose around his as she helped lift him inside.

They laughed quietly as Sam got to his feet, brushing off his sleeve with feigned bravado. Miss Jessica Moore, with her long blonde hair, and dressed in a nightgown so thin Sam could see everything underneath, beckoned him over with a flick of her finger.

He kissed her desperately, as if starved—the feel of her in his arms, pressed against him, stirring him instantly.

“I missed you,” he whispered between kisses.

Jess laughed softly.

“It’s been six hours,” she said, their lips still on each other.

“Exactly.”

Jessica laughed again, finally pulling away.

“Where’s your brother?” she asked him casually. Sam’s face fell; thoughts of Dean with his loaded dice and boastful words filled his mind. It was a risk, gambling with another man’s dice—a risk that could have left them and many others dead. But the prodigal son had done it, despite the odds—yet all the money earned was now being wasted on drink and whores. Sam’s jaw tensed involuntarily at the image.

“I don’t want to talk about Dean,” he answered sullenly.

Jessica raised her brows.

“Sam.”

“He’s reckless,” he said, his jaw tightening even more. “I keep telling him—”

“Hey,” Jessica stopped him kindly, putting a finger to his lips. “I thought you said you didn’t want to talk about your brother.”

Sam smiled, despite himself. Dean was not going to ruin this, not the one good thing in his life.

“Right.”

He kissed her again, and all was forgotten.

“Come on,” Jess said lowly, her voice sultry and warm. “My bed is cold without you in it.”

She held out her hand, and the two collapsed together on top of the sheets, losing themselves completely.

The brothers had come across the Moore’s ranch three weeks prior, after hearing word of a job from the witless delivery driver taking a piss at the side of the road. It didn’t take much—a slick word, a sharing of whiskey. The driver went on his merry way under the impression the Wesson’s were taking over, and to pick up his payment at the post office several towns away. It was rare for a con to go so smoothly, but the brothers were not one to argue convenience.

They had set off to the ranch expecting a quick buck, a one-time only arrangement to keep them afloat until the next con. It turned out, Travis Moore, the patriarch and owner of the estate, quite liked the brothers’ attitude, and the fact they actually had a ‘damn lick of sense, unlike the last fool.’ He offered them more work, more delivery jobs, even a chance to help on the ranch. It was risky, forming a rapport with someone, business or otherwise. There was always a chance they would be recognised, caught off-guard—but the pay, the offer of food and access to a warm bath, were all worth the risk.

It was their fourth day working for Mr. Moore when Sam first laid eyes on Jessica. He had just finished herding cattle, his hair damp and messy, his chest heaving under a shirt stained with dirt and sweat, when he caught sight of a woman watching him from behind the fence. She smiled when he looked at her, seemingly surprised, perhaps even a little embarrassed. Sam was floored, completely disarmed by the sight of her. Before he could smile back, she was gone.

She greeted him the next day with a mug of freshly brewed coffee and an apology—for ‘disrupting his work,’ she said. Sam could barely get a word out. Seeing her then, close enough to touch; her beauty disarmed him all the more. He had never seen a woman like Jessica in person. Her loveliness seemed ethereal, like a maiden from the penny dreadfuls he read as a child, like the painted women, or marbled deities that lived in museums far away. Sam did everything he could from that moment on to learn every single ordinary, remarkable thing about Jessica Moore. She told him about her mother, and the few memories she had of her. She told him about her interest in politics, of the Suffrage Movement that was emerging from the North. In turn, Sam told her about himself, or at least a version of himself that wouldn’t turn her away in fear. It was an honest, noble version—a far cry from reality—and he was both ashamed and elated to tell it.

It wasn’t long before she had taken him to her bed.

Sam had never been with a woman before, the mere sight of her enough to finish him as she undressed the first time. He had been so careful, gentle, frustratingly aware of his own presence, his rhythm and the timing of breath. But she had kissed him, looked at him in a way that told him everything was fine, and that he could let go. He had been with her in a way Dean’s drunken boastings could never have prepared him for, in a way that stunned him, even now, for they had lain together many times since that night. They had learned so much about the other that the act itself had become easy, so carelessly natural. He loved her, he realised. He loved her, and she did not even know his real name.

They lay there now, enveloped in each other’s warmth, tired and satisfied. Sam kissed Jess lightly on top of her head, breathing in her sweet smell and letting his nose be tickled by her soft blonde curls.

“Thank you,” he said in a whisper.

Jess turned to look at him.

“Thank you?” she repeated. “Thank you for what?”

“For letting me into your life. I know we’ve only known each other a short while, but—”

Jessica kissed him softly to halt him.

“I know,” she said, pulling away, “I feel it too.”

She put her head back on his chest and closed her eyes. They enjoyed each other for a moment, nothing but the sounds of their breaths audible in the still bedroom. After a while, Jess turned to him, a look of determination in her ocean-blue eyes.

“You should ask Daddy for more work,” she said decisively. “He’s a stern man, but he appreciates candour. You could be here every day, even rent a lodge. We wouldn’t need an excuse to see each other.”

Sam smiled. It was a wonderful thought, intoxicating, even—but the niggling voice in his head told him it was also an impossible one.

“Jess…” he started softly, stroking her hair, but she pulled away.

“There’s contentment to be had in an honest day’s work, Sam.”

Her voice had hardened, as had her body. She took her arms from him and sat up. Sam blinked, nervousness forming in his belly like a sickness. He put a hand to her arm but she shrugged it off.

“What does that mean?” he asked her desperately.

“Don’t take me for a fool,” Jessica said crossly, staring him down. “You’re swindlers, aren’t you, you and Dean?”

“Jessica, it’s not that simple.”

“Simple is _all_ it is,” she reacted coldly. “I heard you two talking, I know there’s a price on your heads.”

“Listen—”

“So I did a little digging,” Jess continued. “I found out you’re wanted in three counties, that your names aren’t Wesson; it’s Winchester. Your father was John Winchester. They say you’re a killer, Sam, just like he was.”

Sam did nothing but stare. It was pitiful, really; for a moment he really had allowed himself to live in a dream, a dream where he was an honest, hardworking man, who loved a woman, and deserved her love in return.

“Are you going to turn us in?”

Jess studied him, tried to find the anger, the darkness in his eyes, as if they would tell her the root or reason to the things he had done.

“It’d be a pretty penny,” she said quietly, “that’s for certain. It would really help my father’s debts...”

Sam braced himself. If she were to do it, he wouldn’t fight. If dying would be the first honest thing he ever did, then he would walk to the gallows and tie the noose himself.

“But no, Sam Winchester,” he heard Jessica say in the still bedroom, her voice softening, “despite myself… I don’t think I will.”


	3. All Work and No Play

It was the fourth time that month Dean had woken up with the pigs. He blinked, his eyes heavy and his head pounding as the smell of pig shit filled his nostrils. He wretched, last night’s drink emptying itself on to the hay below. Dean groaned and lay his head back down. The swine whose rump he landed on oinked in anger, and gave him a shrill kick to his side. Dean groaned again, curling up helplessly. He tried to remember the events of the previous night, tried to think through the hammering in his head, but there was nothing. He barely would have been able to recite his own name if asked. Dean tried then, to stand, but his legs were shaky and his chest felt winded. He touched his face. His left eye was tender, and his bottom lip was torn, half scabbed and still secreting blood.

He had gotten into a fight; that much was certain. Whether he had fared better than his opponent, however, remained a mystery. Dean was no stranger to brawls, but the denizens of Dry Gulch—the dishonourable ones at least—had warmed to Dean over the past few weeks, so he must have done something particularly shameful to lose their favour. He patted himself down, the decided emptiness of his pockets hurling him to realisation. His gun was gone, as were his dice. He looked down at his left hand, to the place where his ring should have been: it was gone as well. Of course, he remembered now. The overweight half-wit who had bet away all his money… he had kept an annoyingly close eye on Dean the rest of the night, and Dean, in all his drunken stupidity, had gotten careless, gotten caught somehow.

He forced himself to stand. If anything had happened to Baby…

He stumbled out of the pigpen. The sun was not yet up, and the street was quiet. If there were a God, Dean would get out of Dry Gulch alive.

He stumbled between the crudely built buildings, fighting back the urge to vomit, until he reached the outskirts. The houses thinned until it was no more than open country. There was an old shack, a quarter of a mile from town, dilapidated and hidden amongst trees. He had been leaving Baby there every night, for he did not like to leave her hitched around people for too long. Too many souls had laid eyes on her and wanted her for themselves. He approached the shack, the pounding in his head almost blinding. There, in the clearing, was Baby, grazing idly at the sparse patches of grass. Dean’s chest immediately lightened at the sight of her, and his mouth spread in a goofy, childish grin.

“Baby! Glad you’re okay, girl!”

The sound of his voice made her whinny in surprise. She backed away slightly, ready to flee. Dean shushed her, and immediately she was calmed: she knew her master, and she brayed in friendly greeting, nuzzling herself into him. Dean kissed her on the end of her long face, and stroked a hand through her hair.

She was an Arabian, a horse of vast endurance and strength, with a jet-black coat and mane just as dark to match. She had been with the Winchesters for over half a decade. Five years ago she had belonged to his father, and now she belonged to him. She was the most striking, loyal horse he’d ever owned, and the first and only girl he’d ever truly loved.

“You hungry, Baby?” Dean asked her fondly, putting a hand in the knapsack that hung from the saddle. As he reached for the oatcakes she favoured, Dean’s hand fell across something cold and heavy: the inimitable feel of gold. He looked into it. The coin of last night’s winnings was all there, notes and jewellery, too. Dean closed his eyes and let out a booming laugh of triumph.

“Even drunk,” he said to no one, “I’m goddamn resourceful!”

He must have been of a mind to stow his winnings, if only to go back for more. His downfall, of course, but Dean didn’t feel so reckless now. If he were to flee from a place he’d grown to enjoy, at least he was doing it with a pocketful of gold. Dean’s chuckles of valour were interrupted by the sight of something at Baby’s feet: two boots, brown, worn and emitting a foul odour. Dean couldn’t help but laugh once more as another memory of last night appeared to him. After a few more rounds, he’d forced the poor soul he’d made penniless to give him his shoes. It wasn’t as if he’d even wanted them; it was just another way to be cruel.

Baby neighed at him indignantly, waiting to be fed. He brought out the oatcakes and let her feed from his hand. The pain in his head was still there, but knowing Baby was safe and he was rich for a day, it felt significantly more bearable. After a few minutes quiet, he braced himself to make leave. He was not looking forward to seeing his brother, he realised. Sam had been uncommonly agreeable the last couple of weeks. He had not been quick to say, but Dean figured it had something to do with the rancher’s pretty daughter that so often appeared at Sam’s side. He did not expect his brother would react well to the news that the local town was most likely gunning for him, and their work at the farm was now forfeit. The sick feeling in his stomach returned as he stepped on to the back of his horse, and willed her forward.

He was starving by the time he made it back to camp. Having been unburdened of his pocket watch, Dean could only assume it was about lunchtime. Thoughts of cooked meat, roast potatoes and steamed vegetables filled his mind, but Dean had to remind himself that he was an outlaw, and outlaws did not eat like kings. A cold tin of baked beans was surely waiting for him, with a helping of brotherly resentment on the side.

Sam was cleaning his pistol, his back arched to him in concentration. The sound of Baby’s hooves on the mud-cracked earth made him stop. He raised his gun quickly, aiming it at the place between Dean’s eyes.

“Please, not the face,” he joked, his arms up in surrender. “It hurts enough already.”

Sam lowered the gun instantly, but the bitter expression on his face remained. As Dean got off his horse, they faced each other, Dean’s fresh wounds palpable under the midday sun.

“What the hell happened to you?” Sam demanded, noting Dean’s fat lip and beginnings of a black eye.

Dean laughed awkwardly, his eyes to the floor.

“Single, or multiple persons may have worked out that Magic Fingers is in fact a fraud.”

His brother closed his eyes, exasperated.

“Dean.”

“You know,” Dean tried then, his arms in a shrug, “in my defence, most instances those men would have been too drunk or stupid to ever work it out, but that guy I was betting with, he’d obviously been keeping a close eye on me. Wasn’t happy he’d lost all his money—uh, and, the fact I’d also made him give me _his_ boots.”

There was a pause, the look on Sam’s face murderous.

“What can I say?” Dean said in the silence, attempting to jest. “I’m a sore winner.”

He expected Sam to blow up, to yell at him in a way that so reminded him of John. Instead his brother merely sighed, sitting back down to resume the tending of his weapon.

Somehow it was worse, the silence. Dean was used to being yelled at. It was how he was raised; it was how he knew his father had loved him enough to care. The silence, though, there was apathy in silence, and that terrified him.

“I’m sorry, Sam,” Dean said finally, almost desperate. “I messed this town up for us.”

Sam said nothing for a moment, as if contemplating. Finally, he nodded.

“Then we have to leave,” he said, standing. “It’s not safe anymore, we have to move on.”

Dean was staggered. Sam hated moving, deplored it, yet now he was the one actually suggesting it. Something wasn’t right.

“That’s awfully quick to understanding. What about blondie?”

Sam’s face fell, ever so slightly, but he remained composed, refusing to betray his true thoughts. It was something their father would have done.

“It’s for the best,” was all he said.

Dean did not like this, the acceptance, the placidity. He wanted Sam to yell, to beg Dean to stay. He shook his head at his younger brother, struggling to find the words.

“I’m sorry, Sam. I know you liked her.”

“She was the first—”

Sam stopped himself from continuing. His breath had halted sharply, too painful for him to continue. He collected himself once more.

“She was the first person who ever _saw_ me,” he forced himself to finish.

He looked at Dean, his eyes expectant, pleading for something. Dean didn’t understand—he couldn’t. He had never been in love. Women saw right through him, to the drunken letch beneath. Dean had no substance; he knew that. It was how he’d always been. The brothers stared at each other in obstinate silence a few moments longer, until Sam gave up, shaking his head in defeat.

“Forget it,” he finished, turning away. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Despite the fact it was the truth, Dean found himself offended.

“Hey, I know what it’s like to get my dick wet, Sammy. There are women I still think about sometimes.”

Sam laughed grimly, shaking his head once more.

“Unbelievable.”

He had always been this way, Dean thought mutinously: a prince in pauper’s rags, a romantic in a realist’s world. Too many times did Sam have ideas above his station, his head stuck in a fantasy that he was anything more than the son of a lawbreaker, anything more than a common thug. Dean accepted that about himself. He knew he would never own a home, have a wife or children to love him. He was born free, on the edges of society where men still lived the old way, before rich officials in government buildings had proclaimed the world was civilised. The world was not civilised. It was built on the back of a million dead souls under the guise of progression, and it would continue under that guise for as long as those government buildings stood. Dean had lived twenty-six years here, in this world of gravestones, rode through it on the back of his horse. He had seen just how uncivilised the world could be, and he knew his place in it. He would not die an explorer, a scholar, even as a good man. He would die an outlaw, like his father before him. No one would remember him fondly, and eventually, no one would remember him at all.

“You know,” Dean said irritably, “the self-righteousness is getting quite tiresome about now, Sam.”

“And your drunken incompetency isn’t?” Sam rallied back.

Reactively, Dean grabbed the knapsack on Baby’s side and yanked it off, the horse neighing crossly at him for his roughness. He emptied the sack on to the ground, last night’s winnings settling themselves in a messy pile.

“My drunken incompetency has made us enough to get through the next three months,” he said furiously.

Sam was not impressed.

“Look at you, Dean,” he said wearily. “You’re covered in shit. Look around us, look at how we live. We had five years to make something of ourselves, move on from the old life, start again. Instead we simply followed our father into mayhem, chasing a vengeance that should have died with him.”

“Are you saying we should just forget?” Dean asked incredulously.

“I’m saying I’m tired!” said Sam, his voice loud enough to jolt the horses. He sighed then, shook his head, and sat back down.

“John made his choices,” he continued, his voice now quiet, “and because of him, our mother died before she could raise us, John got himself shot, and the Colt is gone. Why should we suffer for his sins? Why should we be outcasts, living on the fringes of civilisation, forced to rob graves and cheat folk in order to get by?”

“It’s that girl, isn’t it?” Dean said unkindly, almost laughing. “She turned you soft. You wanna be a rancher, Sammy, grow old with her on the farm?”

He expected to be yelled at again, but Sam simply closed his eyes.

“I don’t delude myself with such things,” he said, his voice barely higher than a whisper. “I know I can never be with her in the way I want, and I can make peace with that. But this existence, Dean,” he continued, opening his eyes, “this crusade we are on to avenge the family name, to regain a priceless heirloom and ride away into the sunset… It’s a child’s dream; it’s fiction.”

It was so easy for him to say that, Dean thought, so easy not to miss something he’d never had. For Sam could not recall what life had once been like, before the man with the yellow eyes had come.

“I know you don’t remember Mom,” Dean said, his anger dissipating. “You were just a baby when she died… I do, Sam. I remember her. It’s not fiction to me.”

He could say no more; it hurt too much. The brothers instead remained silent, their eyes on the horses feeding lazily from the dry patches of grass that surrounded them.

Dean loved his brother, and he knew Sam loved him, even if they disagreed on most things, even if they did want to kill each other a proportionate amount of the time.

He put a hand on Sam’s shoulder.

“Go to her, Sam,” he said, relenting. “Go to your woman. Tell her goodbye; tell her you’re sorry, whatever it is love makes a man say. We’ll leave tonight.”


	4. The Hunt

It was a two-day ride from Coalfell to Shady Oaks. The crossing had been uneventful, but wretched. The sun was remorseless, scorching down on Castiel like a breeze of fire, and the nights, in contrast, had been cold and harsh with wind. The area of Shady Oaks covered a wide expanse. It made up three towns, numerous homesteads, and a huge forest of oak trees towards the southwest. Castiel had a lot of ground to cover, and not a lot of time do it. There was also a chance the Winchesters had already moved on; the poster was almost a month old, after all.

The first town he had come across was named Tulip, for the orange bulbs that grew in mounds across the adjacent fields. They were a skittish, unhelpful folk, but Castiel could sense the truth of their ignorance when shown the sketch of the Winchester Brothers. Castiel moved on, attempted several ranches along the way. The few farmers that obliged him knew nothing. The rest had not appreciated him on their land; one attempting to shoot his head clean off with the unskilled aim of his shotgun. Castiel continued the rest of the day, knocked on more doors, called out to riders as they passed by, but by nightfall he had gained no greater knowledge of the brothers’ whereabouts. He knew it was time to rest, if not for him, his horse, who was flagging and growing irritable beneath him. A few yards ahead of him, below a high-facing rock, a fire was burning. Castiel was too far from any town and the convenience of a hired room, so he steered his horse down the hill towards the flames.

A man was sat down in the clearing, roasting meat on the end of a long stick. He looked up at the sound of Castiel’s horse. The sight of an armed stranger intruding on his evening supper could have been enough for him to grab his rifle and aim high, but instead he smiled warmly. A makeshift table had been erected next to him, the corpse of a freshly skinned deer laid out on top of it.

“You look weary, friend,” the hunter said pleasantly. “Care for a drink?”

Castiel got off his horse, and approached the fire.

“No drink, thank you,” he replied politely, satisfied to have eluded confrontation, “but I’ll rest here a spell, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.”

Castiel watched as the meat browned amidst the blaze of the fire. Once it was cooked, the hunter tore off a bit and passed it to Castiel, who nodded in thanks.

“How’s the hunting going?” he asked the man after swallowing.

“Fairly well. I’m taking that buck to town tomorrow, should fetch a fair price for him.”

Castiel looked over at the face of the deer, staring out at them from its place on the stand. There was a glassy, urgent look in its eyes, an expression of suddenness. It was not unlike the look of a dead man who had died unwillingly.

Castiel noted the layout of the camp, of charred sticks days old, remnants of canned goods and leftovers scattered about the place in neat piles.

“You been out here long?” he asked the hunter, but he shook his head.

“Not long, came across this camp just a few hours ago.”

“It’s not your camp?” Castiel asked, his interest budding.

The hunter shrugged.

“Well, it is now.”

So, this camp had been abandoned, and by the look of the tidy mounds of sticks and old food, it had not been left out of hastiness. He studied the dried mud surrounding the site. There were marks there, of hooves and boot prints, both of which belonged to more than just one horse and man. If Castiel were an outlaw, he would never stay camped in the same place for long, and never too close to civilisation. The food did not look older than a few days, so if the Winchesters had been here, they may not have gone too far.

He turned his face to the man.

“Where are you heading tomorrow?”

“Dry Gulch,” the hunter answered. “Small town. Trades in meat, mostly. Whole place stinks of pig crap. I’m friendly with the butcher there.”

Castiel had only tried one town since arriving at Shady Oak, so he tried his luck.

“May I accompany you? I have business there, but I do not know the way.”

“Sure,” agreed the hunter. “Might as well rest here, then.”

Castiel had spent so much of his life under the stars, that he fell asleep almost instantly. He woke up the following morning, ashamed of his own carelessness. The hunter had seemed pleasant enough, but Castiel had met many men who had seemed pleasant until they were not. He could have been robbed, his horse stolen, his throat slit from ear to ear—but by some Godly miracle, the hunter was in fact a decent man, and had even prepared Castiel breakfast.

They did not set off straight away. The hunter wanted his trip to town to be worth it, so they headed into the grasslands in search of more game. He had hoped to catch another deer, but after hours of nothing, they settled on a couple of rabbits. They set off finally, well after midday, and rode for hours more. Dry Gulch was further than Castiel had anticipated, and by the time they arrived the sky had turned red and the sun was disappearing behind golden cloud.

“Well, here we are,” the hunter said guilelessly.

Castiel nodded his thanks, digging in his pocket. He threw a gold piece to the hunter who caught it in one hand.

“For your trouble,” he said.

They parted ways, and Castiel left his horse at a hitching post, deciding to explore the rest of the town on foot. It was small, as the hunter had said, made up only of a few homes and businesses. There was a general store, a butcher, and pens filled with livestock along the edges. The smell of manure was overwhelming, an indicator as to why not many presided here. There was no sheriff’s office, and no lawmen in the area to speak of. If Castiel were an outlaw, he would choose a town that was most lacking in security, where the residents were too comfortable and self-centred to keep up with the local news.

There was a saloon in the middle of town, and Castiel figured it was the best place to start his inquiry. He walked up the stairs and marched through the door.

It was quiet inside. The piano sat unattended, and the few customers were passed out on various tables. A whore was sat in the corner of the room, fanning herself listlessly. At the sight of Castiel, she perked up, giving him a wry smile. He ignored it, and she resentfully went back to fanning.

“What are you drinkin’?” the bartender asked him without looking up, his gaze on the cloudy glass he was cleaning.

“I’m not.”

The bartender scowled a moment, but resumed wiping the glass.

“Well, excuse _me_ ,” he muttered under his breath. “Not like you just walked into a bar or nothin’...”

Castiel ignored his tone, instead placed the Wanted poster on the counter, and crossed his arms expectantly.

“I’m looking for these men,” he said.

The bartender gave it a quick glance, but continued cleaning.

“Never seen them before in my life,” he said indifferently.

Castiel sighed.

“Really?” he asked.

“Yup.”

It would seem the residents of Dry Gulch were to be just as unhelpful as the last town. Castiel took a hold of the poster.

“That’s a shame,” he said, putting it back in his pocket slowly, “had twenty dollars on me to gift anyone who had.”

With that, the bartender immediately stopped cleaning and set the glass down.

“Now, let’s take another look, shall we?” he said then, holding out his hand impatiently. “You just waved it in my damn face before!”

Castiel fought the urge to smirk, but obliged. The bartender studied the poster once more, his eyes squinting in concentration. He nodded fervently at the sketch as feigned recognition kicked in.

“Ah,” he said with clarity, “now I see. Yeah, they were in my bar last night, have been every night the past two weeks.”

_Finally._

“How are they?” Castiel asked the barman curiously.

“The older one, Dean? A piece o' shit, if not a somehow likeable one. Funny guy, but can get on your nerves real fast. Got into a fight with one of my regulars last night.”

“How’d that happen?”

“Fella lost quite a lot of money to him playin’ dice. In fact, a lot of ‘em have. Magic Fingers, what we been callin’ him. I don’t know much about it, just heard them yellin’ in the street.”

Castiel nodded. From the illustrations, he had already passed judgement on what he thought the two brothers might be like, and it did not come as a surprise to hear Dean was as defiant and reckless as his outlined smirk made him out to be.

“And the brother, Sam. He’s also a betting man?”

“No way.” The bartender shook his head. “That one’s a real quiet type. Moody. Doesn’t talk to no one except his brother. I didn’t like him the minute I laid eyes on him, truth be told. Still, they seemed harmless enough.”

“They’re killers,” Castiel replied plainly, “they’re to be hanged by the neck until dead.”

“Shame,” the bartender said without sincerity. “Never had such good business before they turned up.”

“Do you know where they are right now? Are they staying somewhere in town?”

“Right now?” the barman repeated. “No. But I been told they found work with Travis Moore. He owns a ranch just west from here, ‘bout twenty minutes ride.”

“Thank you.”

Castiel slipped forty across the counter.

“Thank _you_ , kind sir,” the bartender said back, pocketing it greedily.

Castiel got on his horse, leading him west under the barkeep’s instruction, out of the town of Dry Gulch and on to the open road. He urged his horse forward, faster still until they were at a gallop, and the trees around them had become a blur. Castiel enjoyed the solitude of riding, the sound of his horse’s hooves on alternating ground, from cobbles and dry mud, to grass and wood chips. He liked the feel of the air on his face, the sound of wind loud and distinct in his ears. It was a peace, a feeling he savoured. If he died tomorrow, he would die with thoughts of the ride today.

True to the barman’s word, the view of the ranch appeared twenty minutes into the journey. Castiel slowed his horse down, and began to approach it. It was a modest-sized ranch, and still busy with workers despite the setting sun. He entered through the estate without argument, but Castiel could sense eyes on him as he passed, nervous and distrustful. Across the way a manor stood, the walls peeling with age and wear, the roof crumbling slightly. It may have been a grand building once, perhaps before the railway was built through the state. The tracks missed the ranch by miles, and Castiel supposed most families would have moved on to greater pastures. It was the same all over. The country he once knew was dying, changing in a way that made him feel puzzled and left behind. Castiel had even overheard the story of an inventor in Germany who had built an ‘automobile,’ some sort of horseless carriage. It was an odd thing, and Castiel gave his steed a light pat on the head in contempt of the idea.

He arrived at the manor, and Castiel got off the horse, hitching him at the fence outside. He walked down the thin dirt trail to the porch, walked up the stairs, and knocked on the door three times. A woman answered after a few moments. She was young, with blonde hair worn loosely, and dressed in a simple blue frock with a tan belt buckled around the waist. She closed the door an inch after she laid eyes on Castiel, guarded at the sight of an armed stranger on her doorstep.

“Can I help you?” she asked. She spoke politely, but her voice was firm.

Castiel bowed his head.

“Good evening, madam. I’m looking to speak with the owner of the ranch, Travis Moore.”

“What is it concerning?”

“I’m hoping he has information on two men I’m looking for.”

The lady dallied a moment, thinking. After a while, she shook her head.

“My father’s sleeping,” she said decisively. “He hasn’t been well, and I won’t have him disturbed.”

Castiel looked at her, but she tore her gaze away, as if staring too long would betray the lie she had just told.

“Who are these men?” she asked with sudden interest. “Perhaps I can help you.”

“Sam and Dean Winchester,” Castiel answered, taking the Wanted poster out of his pocket and handing it to her. “I’ve been told they’ve found employment here, is that true?”

Miss Moore studied the sketched faces tensely, unblinking. After a moment she sniffed loudly, handing it back to him with careless haste.

“Once, maybe,” she said, an attempt at nonchalance that translated to exertion. “They delivered one of father’s packages weeks ago. I haven’t seen either since.”

Castiel almost smiled. How torturous it must be for a prudent, proper woman such as this to lie straight to his face.

“Is that so?”

She looked at him, the carefulness of her expression shifting to austerity.

“Yes,” she said severely. “Now, if that is all, you should be on your way.”

“Of course,” said Castiel, tipping his hat. “Thank you for speaking with me, ma’am. Have a pleasant night.”

He turned, walking down the porch steps to the fence where his horse was waiting. He heard a shuffle from behind. The girl had opened the door and seen herself through it.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help,” she said behind him, her tone unclear.

Castiel stopped, and turned around.

“You’ve been incredibly helpful,” he said, and it was the truth. Castiel was good at reading people, in seeing the verity behind the pretence. Miss Moore had unveiled her familiarity of the Winchesters with delicious conviction, even if she hadn’t meant to.

He half-bowed and turned to leave once more.

“Wait,” she called after him, hurrying down the steps. “What will you do when you find them?”

“They’re wanted by the law, Miss,” Castiel said, a little impatiently. “They’re killers and degenerates, and when I find them, I’ll return them to my employers to be hanged. Good night.”

He tried to leave, a third time, but he felt her hand enclose around his arm. If she had been a man, he would have beaten her for the nerve of it.

“What about a trial?”

His jaw tensed with provocation.

“Come again?” he asked, though he had heard her just fine.

“Do they not get a trial? Where’s the justice in execution?”

“Miss,” he said slowly, “you seem quite invested in men who may have only worked here once.”

“I just…” she stumbled, “I believe in the right to a fair trial, that’s all, no matter the allegation.”

“That’s noble of you, madam, but some men don’t deserve to live.”

“Only God can make that kind of judgement,” she argued, and her face fell immediately; she knew she had said too much.

Castiel smiled dully, tipped his hat in farewell, but did not say another word. Instead, he got on his horse and rode away, leaving Jessica breathless and shaking behind him. He let himself dwell on the woman’s words a moment as his horse trotted calmly along the dirt road leading out of the ranch. God decided who was righteous and who was wicked, that much was true, but it was man who had built the gallows, was it not? Man who had crafted the blade, and forged the gun. In fact, man had created so many different ways to kill one another that in Castiel’s mind, it was only fair that man also got to decide who was deserving of judgement, of whom should be sent to God before their time.

It was that philosophy that had helped pave Castiel’s way, a part of why he had become a bounty hunter in the first place. Fifteen years ago, as a youth of nineteen, he had taken his first contract, and made his second kill.

But he’d had a life before that one, in a time when no one knew his name. Until the day a stranger came and asked him…

_“And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you steadfast.”_

_“And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you firm.”_

_“And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong.”_

_If he wished it enough, it would become true._

_The boy cradled himself, his form small and shrinking, a shadow in a dark place. This strange new city he had found himself in did not like his shadow, nor did it like wayward drifters dirtying its streets. Castiel was fading with each passing day; he could feel it, feel it in the way it hurt for him to breathe. He feared he had not the strength to carry on. He feared God had already abandoned him._

_He caught the eye of a man watching him from across the alley. Castiel looked away, terrified at the sight of him. Men had approached him since he had arrived in this strange place, offered him coin, or food, in exchange for his body. Castiel had always refused, each rebuff just another means to his squalor—but Castiel could not give in, not in desperation, nor hunger. He needed to be strong, or he would not be welcomed into the kingdom of heaven._

_He had sinned before he ran away, and he knew God demanded an accounting for the life he had taken. He would suffer until it was enough, until he was forgiven._

_Castiel had not noticed the man had crossed the street and was standing before him._

_“You,” he heard from above, forcing him from his reveries. “Look at me.”_

_Castiel obeyed, and in doing so he was met with an imposing, omnipotent stare. The man was dressed in a hat and fine suit of dark material, adorned with an official badge on the left breast. He was not like the other men who had approached him, with their garbs reduced to tatters; grunge and stench collecting on them like a plague. This man was clean and well groomed, a lawman, perhaps, or a politician. Somehow, it just made Castiel more afraid._

_“Are you hungry?” the man asked him frankly._

_Castiel looked down, forcing a limp nod in reply._

_“You’re not mute, are you?”_

_Castiel blinked, and shook his head._

_“Then speak, boy,” the man demanded. “Use your words. If you’re hungry, ask me for food.”_

_Castiel had not, in truth, used his voice in days, and his throat was raw because of it._

_“I’m hungry, sir,” he forced himself to say, the sound of it hoarse and guttural. “May I have some food?”_

_The man was satisfied by the effort, of the boy’s courtesy._

_“Good,” he said, nodding. “That’s good. What is your name?”_

_“Castiel Novak.”_

_“And how old are you, Castiel Novak?”_

_“Sixteen, sir.”_

_The man studied him, noted his hairless face, the way his small hands wrapped around his legs in nervous comfort._

_“You look younger than sixteen,” he admitted. “At first glance I mistook you for one of those orphan boys. They travel in packs, you know, scurrying around the city like rats in a sewer, taking my food without first asking. Are you a rat, Castiel?”_

_He hugged his knees tighter. He did not understand the man’s intent. Castiel wanted to simply disappear so he would not have to answer any more of his bizarre questions._

_“No, sir,” he replied with strain._

_“But you’re small like one,” the man continued, eyeing him imperiously. “Are you fast, as well?”_

_“I can run a distance, yes.”_

_He knew he could. He’d done so the night he’d murdered his father._

_“Good. And are you quiet like a rat?”_

_Castiel did not reply. After a moment, the man bent down so that their eyes aligned. The boy looked into them—a mottled blue they were, and they were studying him in an unreadable way._

_“Of course you are,” the man continued after a pause, chuckling softly, “why even ask?”_

_Castiel looked away. He could not decide if the man’s eyes were honest or menacing. He simply wished to sleep now, their encounter having exhausted him._

_“Castiel,” he heard the man say, forcing him back to certainty. “I don’t make a habit of doing this, but I find myself in a predicament that needs to be corrected. I have a proposition, a chance for you to work for me. You would be paid, of course, as well as three square meals a day and a place to sleep. What say you?”_

_There was a twinge of desperation to the man’s voice Castiel recognised instantly, of which he felt he could almost sympathise. The other men had wanted Castiel only for a night. This man’s offer was vague, but indefinite, and he did not look at him the way the others had. Payment, food, and a place to sleep: the thought made him warm and drowsy. He almost closed his eyes when he remembered where he was, and to whom he was speaking with. Castiel dared himself to ask one thing:_

_“What’s the job?”_

_The man stood, and for a moment Castiel thought he was going to walk away, leave him forever in the strange new city that hated and preyed on boys like him. He almost grabbed on to the cuff of his trousers to stop him, but the man was still. He was smiling again, of something halfway between compassion and wretchedness._

_“Now, are you really in any position to ask?”_

Castiel blinked quickly, awakening from his stupor. He had found, of late, the past returning to him. Wholly unprompted, these memories would play in front of his eyes like actors in a play.

The man in the well-dressed suit had set in motion Castiel’s entire life; he wondered just how different it would be if they had not met, if Castiel had not taken him up on his offer.

Still, it was not the time to dwell on dreams. He would stay near the ranch, for as long as it took. Miss Moore knew more than she had let on, and it was only a matter of time before the brothers showed themselves. He would be ready for them.


	5. Stalemate

It had been two days since Sam had left for the ranch. Two goddamn days.

Dean had allowed him to leave the camp under the pretence he’d be back in time for nightfall, so they could leave this godforsaken county and go make a mess of another. But it had been two days, and Dean feared the worst. Visions of his brother filled his mind, his face pale, his body bloated and rotting, his eyes pecked out by vultures as unforgiving as the midday sun. Perhaps he was dead, buried with the other forgotten, inconvenient men. Or perhaps he was alive, alive, and had abandoned Dean for the woman who had rid him of his boyhood, who could give him a life that so resembled a civilised world.

Either way, Dean did not know which was worse. Either way, he was alone.

He fed Baby, stroked her dark mane as she neighed appreciatively. After two days it was no longer safe to linger here. He would have to pack up, and make the ride back to the Moore’s ranch. Jess might be there, in which case she would be questioned, or else she’d be gone, and he’d have his answer. Dean had always known his brother’s temperament, his disillusionment with their family’s lifestyle, but Sam wanted revenge just as much as Dean did. He wanted the Colt back just as much as he did…

Dean was desperate now, losing himself inside his head, each thought a surrendering lie.

_“You see this, son?” John asked him, a silver pistol in his hand._

_“It’s a gun.”_

_“It’s not just any gun; this gun was made by Samuel Colt. The greatest gunslinger of his time.”_

_“Did you know him?”_

_“Nah,” John shook his head, “he died long before I was born. You remember granddaddy Samuel, don’t you? Your ma’s father?”_

_Dean nodded slowly._

_“I think so.”_

_“Samuel Colt was your granddaddy’s mentor,” explained John. “Taught him everything he knew, how to hunt, how to shoot, how to make money. He never had a family, did Colt, but Samuel was the closest thing he had to a son. Before he died, he passed the Colt to him, and before your granddaddy died, he passed it to me, his son through marriage. You understand? When I die, the Colt will be yours, Dean.”_

_The boy nodded again, considered his father’s words a moment, but, like any boy Dean’s age, his attention was finite, fleeting, and he found himself distracted by a beetle crawling across the ground._

_“Look, son,” John said, placing the gun in Dean’s small, grubby hands, “look at the craftsmanship, the detail.”_

_Dean studied it frivolously, played with it in his hands, pondered the coldness of it, the weight, the engravings on its side. There were words etched on to the barrel, of a language Dean did not understand._

_“What’s that say?” he asked, running his finger along it._

_“That? ’Non timebo mala.’ It’s Latin, means ‘I will fear no evil.’”_

_“’I will fear no evil?’”_

_“‘Long as the gun remains in this family,” John said assuredly, “nothing bad will ever happen to us. It’s irreplaceable, Dean. It’s priceless. You understand, son?”_

_“Yes, Daddy.”_

Dean had been but a child, then, could not truly understand the truth in his father’s words, the power in the metal John so revered. Dean had grown to love that gun, to fear it, in the same why he had his father. The gun had never passed down to him, as he had been promised. It had been stolen, stolen by a man with yellow eyes, after he had fired a single of the Colt’s bullets into John Winchester’s heart.

But his thoughts of Sam, of his father, of the Colt, all disappeared as he felt something cold and solid rest on the back of his head.

“Don’t move,” he heard a man say from behind him, his voice deep and impassive.

Despite his predicament, Dean found himself beginning to laugh.

“You wouldn’t shoot a man with his back turned, would you?”

“I’m not here to shoot you, Mr. Winchester,” the man replied. “If you die, I don’t get paid.”

This was good, Dean deliberated. This man wasn’t here arbitrarily, to rob or kill him just because he could. No, this man was hired, and hired men could be bought.

“You a bounty hunter?” he asked carefully. “Say, how much am I worth?”

“A fair amount,” the man replied. “Don’t get as much for you alone, though. I was hoping Sam would be here also.”

Relief washed over Dean at the gunslinger’s words. So Sam hadn’t been captured or killed, at least not by this man. There was still hope that his brother was out there, could still carry on their father’s legacy, with or without him at his side.

“You and me both, bud,” he said lightly. He stared at his pistol rested atop the sleeping bag inside his open tent. He cursed himself silently for being careless enough to have left it there.

“You’re saying he’s not here?” the bounty hunter asked, pressing the gun harder against his skull.

“Yup,” Dean replied truthfully, “and if he was, he wouldn’t be dumb enough to show his face now.”

“Just shoot him,” he heard another voice from behind him say, a familiar voice. “Go on.”

He dared himself to turn his head, just a little. It was that man—that fat piece of shit he’d conned for all he was worth, and gotten a beat-down for it.

“Fatty… is that you?” He studied him, noted the swelling around his eyes, the bruises on his cheeks and chin, the way his nose bent unnaturally to the left.

“Well, goddamn,” he said, and he couldn’t help but laugh callously, “take a look at you. Guess I won the fight, huh?”

He expected to be hit, kicked, _something_. The man lacked self-control, as proved by the other night, but to Dean’s surprise, he simply smiled.

“You’re the one with a gun to your head,” he said smugly. “Way I see it; looks like _you_ lost the fight.”

Dean couldn’t argue with that.

“Quiet,” the gunslinger ordered.

“Listen to your wife, fatty.” If he was to be caught, he wasn’t going to be polite about it.

“Fuck you,” the man seethed. “I want my money, you son of a whore. I want my boots.”

“Yeah…” started Dean, recalling having left them by the shack outside of town to be inhabited by mice and rattlesnakes. “Your boots I don’t have, I’m afraid. The ones you’re wearing though are quite nice,” he smirked at them, black and new, with a buckle on the front. “Maybe I’ll have them next.”

The bounty hunter sighed impatiently, but before he could speak, the man had brought out a pistol from the back of his slacks, and was aiming it at Dean’s head.

“Keep talkin’,” he tested, “I dare ya’.”

“Put that gun down,” the gunslinger demanded.

“Tell me where my boots are!”

“Or what?”

That’s when he saw it: a dark-haired figure a ways off, perched on the back of a sandy-coloured horse. He had a rifle in his hand, and it was pointed straight at them. He seemed stoic, his expression gritty, yet resolute. It was the way his father used to be. Maybe it was his father, Dean thought recklessly. Maybe it was John, and he had returned from the grave to save him.

Dean blinked rapidly, the image of his father disappearing before his eyes, and shifting to a form that was much younger, to something he could more easily familiarise. It was Sam, of course it was. His ear-length hair stuck to his face like thread, his chest heaved in exhausted panic. So he hadn’t abandoned him. He hadn’t gotten himself killed. Dean wanted to smile, to stare at his brother forever, but he couldn’t let the others know. He couldn’t let Sam get caught too. Sam urged his horse slowly through the grass, his finger on his lips to motion silence. Despite himself, Dean wanted to shout, to tell Sam to turn back. He didn’t want his brother to see him like this, on his knees in the dirt, a gun to his head.

The fat man kept his gun raised, and cocked it finally.

“You know what?” he said, leering at Dean with blackened teeth. “It don’t matter… I already led him straight to ya’, and with the reward money I’ll get for killin’ ya’, I can afford—”

But the man could not finish his sentence, could not fire his weapon into the swindler that had cheated him, because a shot far away had echoed throughout the open country, and had penetrated the man’s skull. He fell loudly, his body landing in a heavy, indecorous heap on the soil below. Dean stared at the man who had almost killed him. The bullet had not left a hole; it had left a crater. His entire head had sunken, like a hammer to sheet rock, the purple of his brain sprouting from it like wilted flowers.

Dean looked at Sam wildly, his eyes widened in demand, yet his brother only shook his head, slow and cautious. It hadn’t been him. He was facing towards the man, and the man had been shot from behind. Before Dean had time to turn, the bounty hunter had grabbed his shoulders and wrought him frantically to the ground—just as another shot rang past them, missing them by an inch.

“Get down!” he yelled, pulling Dean behind a lone boulder.

Dean looked at the bounty hunter’s face properly; he was so close Dean could see the flecks of colour in his eyes, blue and dusted and cold as frost. He seemed so familiar, he realised, but Dean couldn’t place where. He saw the man’s hands then, still holding him down; they were stained with red.

“You’re bleeding,” he said.

The man looked down, studying his hands a moment. He regarded Dean strangely.

“It’s not my blood.”

Of course, Dean realised, the pain hitting him like a sledgehammer. He looked down at his shoulder and saw the fabric soaked, the thick, warm liquid slowly gushing out of it into a pool below. Dean had never been shot before, despite the many men that had tried. The pain was new, white-hot and numbing. His vision was clouding, and he blinked, his breath turning to rapid pants. If he were to die, he had hoped his mother would appear—hold him like she did when he was young. Instead, it was the bounty hunter who held him, still with his hands on Dean’s bloodied shirt.

“Dean!” he heard his brother cry, unveiling himself of his hiding place.

“Sam,” he forced himself to yell, “get out of here!”

The sniper had a clear shot of him. If they chose to fire, Dean would have to watch his brother become a crater, see the colours that lay behind his skull.

Sam held his carbine in front of him, aimed at the bounty hunter’s chest.

The man nodded his head in greeting.

“Thank you for joining us, Sam,” he said politely. “Shoot me, and your brother dies.”

Sam did not lower the gun.

“He needs a doctor!”

“We’re miles from the nearest town,” the bounty hunter disputed. “He’ll bleed out by the time you can get him to one. I can help him, but you need to put that gun away.”

 _Bang_. Another shot rang out, missing Sam by a fingerbreadth. His horse reared and brayed in panic, and Sam had to yank the reigns harshly so the steed wouldn’t flee.

“Sam,” Dean forced himself to speak once more, “I’m fine! Take Bones and go! Don’t… don’t worry about me!”

But Sam shook his head.

“I won’t leave you, Dean!”

“Go! Go see… our old friend,” Dean ordered, his voice fading. “He’ll help you find it…”

His brother looked like he might speak, but the bounty hunter called out, his voice as detached and glacial as his eyes.

“You can go, Sam,” he called out calmly, “I won’t stop you, and once your brother has been hanged, I’ll come back. I’ll come back for you, I promise you that.”

Dean watched Sam dally from the back of his horse, the strangled look on his face subduing him as he contemplated the threat of the bounty hunter, and the gunshot to Dean’s torso. He really was so young, Dean thought, despite the scars he wore like armour, despite the gun in his hand he’d used to rob and kill with for years. Sam was still his brother, still his kid brother. He had to protect him; he had to tell Sam he loved him, even if the pain had now robbed him of his voice.

 _Leave me_ , he wanted to scream. _Leave me and save yourself_. Dean only hoped the look in his eyes would be enough.

Sam simply stared at him, but Dean nodded.

 _It’s all right_ , he smiled; he wished with all his might Sam would understand why it had to be this way.

He closed his eyes, and the world went black.


	6. An Old Friend

He had ridden for a day without food or rest, his horse near collapsing by the time the modest pig farm came into view. Sam swallowed involuntarily at the sight of it. He had known of this place for years, but had never dared go near it—but this was where Dean had told him to go with the last of his strength, and the man Sam hoped was inside the cabin was his only hope of getting him back.

“Sorry to work you so hard, Bones,” Sam said, patting the head of his horse as they slowed. He rummaged in his bag for a flask of water and poured it into the steed’s mouth, the horse accepting the fluid messily. His own throat was parched, but he let his horse finish the rest of it—his thirst a punishment, perhaps, for his actions. He had abandoned his brother, left him in that clearing to die—if not from the bullet that had pierced his chest, then the law’s justice that would soon be upon him, their greeting taken form of a necklace of rope.

Sam had also abandoned another whom he loved. He had gone to Jess three days before, the moon hanging high and full as he reached her window. He had picked up a pebble, thrown it skyward, and watched it land against the glass. Within a mere moment Jess’s face had appeared, peering down at him in a troubled, nervous way. She did not open her window as he had come to expect, but instead disappeared behind it. Within an instant she had opened the front door and was rushing through it, jumping into Sam’s arms as he held her close, breathing in her soft scent, in the hopes he’d have every part of her memorised by the time she pulled away.

He had kissed her a final time, begged her to forget him, but she assured him she never would. She warned him of the man who had come calling, who had loitered outside the ranch until her father’s guards had chased him away. Sam had been selfish, then. He imagined a world without Dean, without his promise, and they had gone away together, fled from the ranch and their obligations as they headed to the nearest station. They were going to live. They were going to grow old together, in a place far away where no one knew his name except for her.

They had gotten as far as the next county when their dreams were smothered by reality. Jess couldn’t abandon her father, she just couldn’t. He relied on her; he was an old man now, his strength fading and debts mounting with every sunrise. Without Jess, without the ranch, Travis Moore was as good as dead. And Dean, Sam realised grudgingly, would be lost without him, too. It would be cruel, really, like leaving a wounded animal to die slowly. They had turned back, and Sam bid Jess a second, final goodbye, left his heart and hope with her, and made his way back to camp—where the bounty hunter and sniper’s bullet awaited him.

He could have gone back the first night, warned Dean so they could flee together, but instead he had abandoned him, allowed the gunslinger to find the camp, and to point the gun at his brother’s head. He had allowed the sniper to shoot him, and finally, he had fled, left him there bleeding on the ground. If the roles were reversed, Dean would have undoubtedly died for him—died rather than leave him alone.

Sam halted his horse as they reached the hovel. He hitched Bones at the fence outside, took a deep breath, and walked down the path to the front door. He knocked three times and stood there, his heart hammering in his chest.

He heard a clamour from inside, wood scraping against wood—the cocking of a shotgun.

“Who’s there?” came a gruff, familiar voice.

“Bobby,” he said, smiling despite himself, “it’s me. It’s Sam.”

“Sam Winchester?” Bobby questioned, his tone accusing. “I ain’t seen you in five years, boy, how’d you know where I live?”

“Bobby, can you just open the door?”

“How’d you know where I live?” he repeated, louder.

“I…” Sam stumbled. He had been foolish enough to think he might be welcomed with open arms. He should have known better. Sam chose his next words carefully.

“Dean and I paid a man a couple years back to seek you out. We didn’t want anything from you; we just wanted to check you were still breathing. We weren’t gonna bother you, I swear, but I’m desperate, Bobby. They’ve got Dean. They… they shot him.”

“Law or outlaw?” he heard through the door, the man’s voice softening slightly.

Sam closed his eyes.

“I don’t know.”

“Is he dead?”

“I don’t… I don’t _know_.”

“And you weren’t followed?”

Sam grit his teeth, glancing behind him in assurance.

“I swear it.”

He heard a sigh, a lowering of a weapon. He dared himself to hope.

“All right,” Bobby said after a long pause, “I’m opening up. Stand back.”

The door opened, and Sam found himself facing the man he once revered as a second father, whose skin was pink and mottled with age, and festooned with an untamed beard. Sam couldn’t help it; his mouth outstretched into the first real smile he’d had since leaving Jessica, but Bobby did not share the same enthusiasm. He looked past Sam, his gaze suspicious as he studied the woodland behind him. Once he was sated that Sam was indeed alone, he grabbed the boy’s arm and thrusted him inside.

“Come in,” he said, his voice a stern whisper. “Quickly, now.”

He closed the door swiftly, giving Sam a reproachful look as he turned around.

“Take off those boots,” he ordered, “I won’t have you dirtying up my floors.”

Sam complied, looking around him curiously. It was a humble cabin, neat and decorated practically. A photograph of Karen, Bobby’s wife, hung above the single bed, a pressed flower set behind the glass. There were other photos rested on a cabinet, but these had been turned down, for so long the frames had collected dust. Sam wondered if any of the pictures were of him.

He sighed. He hadn’t realised just how tired he was until now that he had stopped riding. His legs were stiff and he took a hold of a chair to rest, but Bobby’s gruff voice perked up sternly.

“You’ll remove your guns before sitting at my table, boy.”

Sam pulled the rifle over his head obediently, and leaned it against the wall. He unholstered his pistol and set it down on the same cabinet as the downturned photographs. Finally, he was able to sit down without complaint. Bobby followed suit, his posture awkward as they faced each other from the two ends of the table.

Sam tried once more to appease his old friend.

“You look good, Bobby.”

“Don’t patronise me.”

Sam sighed again; he was starting to regret ever knocking.

“I wasn’t,” he said firmly. “Look, I’m sorry for coming here. I just… I didn’t know where else to go.”

With that, Bobby’s face changed completely, and Sam knew the man he loved more than his own father was still in there; he was just being stubborn.

“My God,” Bobby said, his voice breaking, “it’s like staring at a ghost. You… You want a drink?”

Sam did not have time to answer, for Bobby had already gotten up and was pouring two steep glasses of something dark and strong smelling. He set the cups down, and they drank—Bobby, a gulp long enough to sink the whole glass, and Sam, a polite sip that set his throat alight but warmed his belly comfortingly.

Finally, Bobby spoke.

“What happened?”

Sam dithered, trying to find the right words, words that wouldn’t make him look like the thoroughly selfish fool that he was.

“A bounty hunter came for us,” he started slowly, “led by some guy Dean had pissed off. He got shot. Someone blew his head off from miles away.”

“ _Dean?_ ” Bobby asked frantically.

“No,” Sam replied quickly, noting the way Bobby’s skin had turned white with shock. “No, the _guy_. Anyway, I tried to help, but Dean got shot too, in the chest I think. He told me to leave him, to come and find you.”

Bobby went to take another sip, but in realising he’d already finished it, set the glass back down grumpily.

“Jesus,” he said lamely after a pause.

“I never would have come here if I wasn’t desperate, Bobby,” lamented Sam awkwardly, attempting to fill the silence. “I know how things ended between us—”

“Stop, Sam,” Bobby interrupted kindly. “It’s okay. I’m sorry for how I was before. I’ve grown… cautious in my old age, to put it politely.”

They smiled at each other.

“I hadn’t noticed,” said Sam, stifling a chuckle.

At this, they both laughed—loud and jovial—as they did when Sam was still a boy, unaware of the world and its cruelty.

“You know,” Bobby said finally, his face turning sombre, “when a man kills and cheats his way through life, it takes a toll on him.” He looked at Sam, his blue eyes tired and ancient. “Does it really come as a surprise he ends up angry and alone because of it? My wife is dead, Sam. I’m poor as a church mouse, old as the hills. I got nothin’ now, ‘cept those fat pigs outside.”

“Bobby…” Sam tried.

“Look at me,” Bobby finished for him. “Look at where I am. Your father, me, Bill Harvelle… we were fools thinkin’ we could rob trains one day, and raise families the next. When Bill got shot, left Ellen a widow and Jo without a father, _that’s_ when we should’a gotten smart. But no, we just got more and more stupid and caught up in it all. It was then, when we were grievin’ the most, we put our trust in ol’ Yellow Eyes Masters...”

The sound of the name stopped Sam from breathing.

“Yellow Eyes,” he repeated slowly, the memory of the smiling man as he pulled the trigger clouding in front of his waking eyes. “He’s the reason my parents are dead.”

Bobby nodded uncomfortably, placing the glass to his mouth once more. At the second realisation it was empty, Bobby grabbed the entire bottle from the counter and took a swig of it.

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Bobby drinking, Sam staring at the room in tired docility.

_“I’ll be seeing you, Sammy,” the man had said, before fleeing on the back of an armoured wagon. “I’ll be seeing you.”_

Sam felt goosebumps on his skin as he recalled the man’s final words, as John lay dead on the ground beside him.

Bobby cleared his throat, and Sam was pulled back to the present.

“I don’t know if your father ever told you this, Sam,” the man started, his voice regretful, “but… he was gonna get out. When Mary fell pregnant with you, John knew he had to get out of the life, for the sake of his family. But Yellow Eyes took away that plan when he took away your mother. It… destroyed him. I know John loved you, but… he loved his hatred more. Fed it, until revenge became his one nature.”

It was hard to believe John would ever want to leave the life, the way he used to hark on. He was an outlaw, through and through. The thought he would want to abandon it, live a quiet, law-abiding existence, was almost laughable. But Bobby wouldn’t lie, not about John, and Sam almost envied him for knowing his father all those years ago. He had heard stories of how John used to be before Mary’s death, idealistic, forward thinking—a true leader. But the John Sam knew, the fanatic obsessed with revenge—it truly had become him, until there was nothing else about him that was discernable. Sam resented him for it, resented _himself_ because he understood, in a way—saw it in his own eyes when he beared to look in a mirror.

“I think I have that hatred in me too, Bobby,” Sam said finally, unable to meet the man’s gaze. “For Yellow Eyes, for my father, for Dean… I’m angry, all the time… and when that bounty hunter came for us, I thought, this is it; it can all finally end.”

He dared himself to look at Bobby, to challenge the fear in his eyes—but there was none, only love.

“You’re not a bad person, Sam,” Bobby said. “I truly hope you know that. You’re what, twenty-two? It’s not too late for you to start over.”

“And leave Dean to hang? How could that be starting over?”

Bobby shook his head, took another long gulp that emptied the bottle completely.

“I won’t lose you both, Sam; I just won’t…” There was a determination, an air of stubbornness in the man’s voice, despite the way it cracked and fell away. “You and Dean, you’re my family. I know I made mistakes. I know your father and I ended on bad terms, but I loved him like a brother, and I love you like a son. Both of you. That’s why, if you’re stupid enough to try and save Dean, then I’m stupid enough to come with you.”

The temptation to reach out and hug the man was so strong Sam felt the chair shift beneath him—but he stopped himself. Instead, he settled on a nod.

“Thanks, Bobby.” It was all he could say—all he needed to.

Bobby nodded back, and stood suddenly, a little heavy on his feet after drinking half a bottle of whatever that cheap swill was. He turned around, opened a cabinet and brought out two tins of ancient-looking canned peaches.

“Now eat,” he said, setting them down haphazardly on the table, perhaps a little ashamed that it was all the food he could offer. Sam didn’t mind, he was starving, and it had been weeks since he’d had anything resembling fruit. He gulped down the first tin so fast Bobby offered him the second without a word.

“Bones will need something too,” Sam said, yawning after he had swallowed the last of the peaches.

“I’ll do it,” said Bobby, rising. “You should get some sleep. There, you can have my bed. We’ll make a plan tomorrow, all right?”

Sam nodded wearily. He walked over to the bed, sat down, and had fallen asleep before his head hit the pillow.

He dreamt in colours, of blacks and reds, and yellows—harsh, blinding yellows. The colours spoke to him, screamed at him, until they had taken the form of a man. The man smiled at him, his mouth abnormally wide and expanding, the colours growing harsher and unclear as they melded into one blinding eruption—the sound, like a gun, ringing in his ears until it deafened him.

The colours disappeared into a void. Sam was alone, as he had left Jessica, as he had left his brother. It was his fault. _His_ fault.

_“I’ll be seeing you.”_

Sam awoke with a start, panting and wet through. He startled at a sound from across the room. Bobby was preparing breakfast, whistling softly.

 _It was a dream, just a dream_ , Sam told himself, but it didn’t make him feel any better.

Bobby turned around at the sound of Sam’s shuffling.

“Hope you had a better sleep than I did,” he said, amusement in his voice. “I was on the floor, and you were writhing around like a snake all night. Thought the Devil had ya’.”

“Sorry about that…” Sam said bashfully. There was not a chance in Hell he was going to tell Bobby about his dream. He got up, stretched, and seated himself at the table as Bobby set down two plates of corn bread. Sam took a couple of bites out of politeness, but the sick feeling he so often had now was settled in the pit of his stomach, and every swallow felt like a rock in his throat.

“So, you got a plan?” he asked Bobby, his voice quietly desperate.

“First,” Bobby said resolutely, after swallowing a huge bite of his own bread, “we’re gonna need guns. Lots of ‘em.”

“First?” questioned Sam. “We don’t even know where Dean is.”

“An outlaw as notorious as him’s gonna have his execution date written in the paper for the whole world to see,” Bobby said through chews, his mouth full to bursting. “Trust me, the law are desperate to prove to common folk they’re doin’ their jobs right.”

“What if Dean doesn’t make it to the execution? I saw him shot, Bobby.”

The man merely shrugged.

“Then we’ll have to pray to God that bounty hunter knows how to get a bullet out,” he said plainly, finally having swallowed. “In the mean time, we’re gonna need to stock up.”

“And where are we gonna get these guns from, the local store?”

Bobby gave him a look that almost made Sam smile, despite his agitation and the sick feeling in his gut.

“You remember Rufus Turner, don’t you?”

“Rufus? Of course I do. That old bastard’s still breathing?”

“Breathing,” repeated Bobby, nodding, “and makin’ good money, what I hear, dealing arms to outlaw scum.”

Sam raised his brows. It was certainly an idea. Rufus had been an old friend of their father’s, a member of the Sons of Colt when Sam was a boy. He had, as so many members before and after him, deserted the group after clashing with John’s leadership, at his obsession with finding Yellow Eyes and exacting revenge for Mary’s death. Sam had not seen Rufus in eight years, perhaps longer, but from what he remembered of him the man had been loyal, at least for a time, and all in all a good man.

“You think he’d deal with us?” he asked, attempting another bite at his corn bread.

“We’re outlaw scum, ain’t we?” Bobby said jokingly. “It’s worth a try.”

“Where’s he at nowadays?”

“Oh, up there in them mountains with the bears and the wolves,” said Bobby, his head pointed to the mountains outside his window, far away and laden with snow. “He likes the company.”

Sam sighed internally, the thought of wild animals and the bitter cold dampening his spirits even more.

“Great,” he said sullenly.

Bobby chose to ignore Sam’s tone as he got up from the table and unlocked the latch on the front door.

“Eat up,” he ordered. “We’ve got a long ride ahead of us. After you’re done you can help me pack the horses up. We need plenty of food, water and warm clothing, got it?”

Sam finished his breakfast with great difficulty, the bread turning to paste in his mouth the longer he chewed it. Finally, he got up from the table and helped Bobby prepare the horses for their journey into the mountains. After another hour, they were all set. Sam had borrowed one of Bobby’s old coats and riding gloves, and had packed them in the cotton bag that rested on Bones’ rear.

“Bobby,” Sam said, as they gave the horses a final feed before setting off.

“Yeah, Sam?”

Sam had been debating whether or not to mention this since he had arrived at the pig farm the day before, but before he could change his mind his lips had begun to move of their own volition:

“Dean didn’t ask me to save him,” he admitted, his voice stiff. “He told me to find you so you could help me get it back. The Colt.”

“What is it with you Winchesters and that goddamn thing, huh?” demanded Bobby, his brows knitting together in annoyance. He turned away from Sam and continued feeding his horse. “Bunch o’ idjits, I’ll tell ya’,” he said under his breath.

Regardless of the fact he agreed with him, Sam found himself annoyed.

“He’s just trying to be a good son,” he defended, his voice growing louder. “He thinks if we found the Colt it would… change everything somehow. He thinks we’re cursed without it.”

He expected Bobby to laugh in his face, but the man merely sighed.

“We’re all cursed, Sam,” he said gently, “just some of us learn how to live with it. Treat it like footsteps, I say; stomp it into the ground and leave it behind.”

Sam smiled.

“That’s an interesting sentiment, Bobby.”

“Some would call it bullshit, but I appreciate the validation, son.”

They laughed, and the argument was forgotten.

“Come on,” said Bobby, “let’s head out while it’s still early.”

“What about the pigs?” asked Sam, looking back at the huddle of pink and black swines milling about in their pen.

“They’ll be fine,” puffed Bobby, getting on his horse with great difficulty that he would never admit to, “got enough food in their sty to feed a small army. We’ll be back in two, three days tops, ‘long as we don’t get mauled by a bear or shot by bandits—or both, you pick.”

“Oh,” Sam said, laughing, “I did miss you, Bobby.”

He got on his own mount, and the horses began to trot west down the wooded path.

Sam was so glad not to be alone, he realised guiltily, because being alone made it harder to ignore the Yellow Eyed man. Of late, he was always there, waiting for Sam inside his own head, always wearing that cruel and knowing smile.

Somehow, some way, Sam had a feeling they’d be seeing each other soon.


	7. Riding out the Storm

The loss of the younger brother was… regrettable, but Castiel had not the time to lament defeat. The older one, Dean, was unconscious and would die if he were not treated soon. They had to get away, as quick as lightening. The phantom that watched them from the scope of a rifle could surely fire at any moment. He waited to hear another echo of a bullet as he fled, Dean strapped across the hind of his horse as Castiel pulled her reigns from the seat of his own—but there was nothing he could hear but the bolting of hooves on hard ground.

He rode like this for miles, one arm behind him, pulling at the black horse’s reigns, and one in front, holding his own tightly in order to remain balanced. Castiel needed to find a place, somewhere safe and empty, so he could treat the man undisturbed. He took a quick glance behind him as they rode forward. The outlaw’s face was curdled white, and slick with sweat. His eyes were closed, but not in rest—his face seemed disturbed, twisted in unwitting affliction. Castiel had covered the wound as best he could before strapping the man to his horse, but it was not enough to stay the bleeding. His whole right side was doused with the dark liquid, and streams of it ran down his neck where his head hung unnaturally to the side.

“ _Yah!_ ” Castiel cried, bucking his feet together harshly. His steed wagged his head and neighed irately, but carried him faster, until the whole world became a blur.

By the grace of God, Castiel found exactly what he was looking for some minutes later: a handsome cabin with an adjoining stable rested atop a hill, the whole place shrouded by trees. Castiel got off his horse quickly, armed himself with his pistol and bull-rushed the door. There was no one inside, and by the looks of it, hadn’t been for some time. Bowls of rotted food amassed the counter tops, and the dining chairs lay strewn on their sides, as if there had been a struggle. Still, Castiel did not need to know the circumstances of the cabin’s barrenness. What mattered was that they were alone, and now had four walls as sentry from the quiet spectres with deadly aims. He unstrapped the outlaw, his fingers swift and unshaking, and lifted the man over his shoulder. He brought him inside, laid him out on the bed, and set to work.

It had taken nearly two hours, but Dean Winchester had gotten through the worst of it. Castiel watched him sleep. The man’s face had softened, and his breathing was calm, his bare chest rising and falling in rhythmic waves. The wound was bandaged, and had been cleaned thoroughly. He would not die, at least not that day.

Castiel went outside to check on the horses. They were grazing amicably beside each other, but the black horse looked up at him as he closed the door. She was a beautiful creature, Castiel noted. Perhaps, once he had taken Mr. Winchester to his employers, he would have her for his own—either that or sell her. The gunshot had really dampened Castiel’s plans, and delayed things indefinitely, but he was a patient man. He would wait, answer any questions the outlaw had, but keep him it a distance. He had no time for pleasantries, for meaningless conversation. Dean Winchester was his captive, after all.

It wasn’t until early evening the outlaw began to stir. Castiel’s eyes fell to the man from his seat at the table as he heard a shift. Dean’s head lolled off the blood stained pillow and he muttered something inaudible, though to Castiel it sounded almost like a name. Finally, he opened his eyes. They looked at each other silently for a moment. He must have forgotten the wound in his right shoulder, because he tried, then, to hoist himself up with his elbow. The pain must have seared through him, because the outlaw closed his eyes and winced sharply, letting himself fall back into his old position in defeat.

“Careful, Mr. Winchester,” Castiel said, standing. “You lost a lot of blood. Do you remember what happened?”

Dean was panting again, his jaw tensed in fresh agony.

“You… You shot me,” he said breathlessly.

“Now we both know that’s not true,” Castiel replied calmly.

“Then… then you paid someone to do it.”

Castiel sighed.

“Mr. Winchester, why would I do that? You’re my commodity, a very expensive one. It’s in my best interest you remain as fit as possible before I can get you to Coalfell.”

“Coalfell?” Dean asked distractedly. “Never heard of it.”

“It’s heard of you. I had a rather interesting conversation with the deputy there. He doesn’t like you very much.”

“What deputy?”

“Calls himself Victor Henriksen.”

“Henriksen… Henriksen…” Dean let the name linger on his lips a moment until his eyes lit up in recognition. “Oh, _Henriksen_.”

He allowed himself a soft chuckle, but even that proved too much. His jaw tensed, the pain leaving him rigid, yet he forced himself to endure.

“How is the smug old bastard?” he asked through gritted teeth.

“Seems to have been in a perpetually bad mood the last two years,” Castiel answered plainly, “on account of you blowing off his arm.”

“Bullshit,” Dean retorted immediately, but Castiel continued, undeterred.

“Says you killed a woman to do it.”

With that, the outlaw observed him darkly, his face transgressed.

“I’ve never laid a hand on a woman,” he said, his eyes blaring with the sheer outrageousness of it, “let alone killed one.”

Castiel raised his brows at the man.

“Henriksen begs to differ. Says you and your brother were spat right out of the bowels of Hell, if I recall.”

“That’s a reach,” Dean said, and he let that same soft chuckle escape his lips. “Look, if you had a face like this you would _not_ mess with explosives…”

Castiel scowled softly, looking away, but the outlaw broke the silence once more.

“So, how’d you find me anyway?”

“Well,” Castiel started slowly, having expected this conversation to come up sooner or later, “it was rather easy. You two have been quite careless these past few weeks. I mean, finding steady work, making a name for yourselves? What were you thinking?”

Dean laughed again, not a chuckle, an honest, easy sound, though he winced once more in pain for doing so.

“I blame Sam for that,” he said fondly. “There was this girl… I admit I didn’t see the harm in it at first.”

“Miss Moore?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Jessica. You met her?”

“She tried very hard to pretend like she didn’t know you.”

“So where does Fatty come in?” Dean asked then, his eyes rising to the ceiling. “God rest his soul,” he added quickly.

“Well,” Castiel began, “I loitered around the ranch after, hoping one of you would show yourselves, but Jessica, she got a couple of her father’s guards to chase me off. So I went back to Dry Gulch, where your friend was waiting for me.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“He told me he knew where you two were camped, said he’d followed your brother back to it after one of his evening visits with Miss Moore. He wanted to come with me, so he could get his belongings back under my protection.”

Dean nodded, sated by his answer.

“That’s pretty smart of him, actually. Too bad what happened. You really don’t know who it was that shot us?”

“I told you,” Castiel said impatiently, “no.”

“Just seemed kinda convenient.”

Was he purposefully goading him? Castiel swallowed, but remained blank faced.

“Convenient that you got shot and your brother got away?”

“Hey,” Dean reminded him, his eyes glittering daringly, “you let him go.”

Castiel glared.

“For now.”

Silence begot the room, then. Castiel had been alone for so long, he was not used to this. Talking with this man, his captive, was new and exhausting and so very different to what he had predicted when he had picked up the Winchester’s bounty a week ago. In truth, Castiel had expected a lot worse of the brothers from the story the deputy had told him. The way they had acted in the clearing—Dean’s flippant, playful nature, Sam’s boyish panic, the loyalty from his woman the few days before, who, despite the situation, seemed an honest, pious sort… playing cards, ranch work… these did not seem the happenings of godless, evil men.

And now, Mr. Winchester’s composure, his light, easy laugh—it all seemed so foreign for a man who had a thousand dollar bounty on his head. Castiel scowled silently. Dean Winchester was a stranger, his hostage. It was not Castiel’s business to uncover this man, to assess his honour or his truth. And yet…

“So, you got the bullet out?” Dean asked him, and Castiel’s thoughts were pushed away.

“Didn’t have to,” he shrugged, grateful for the distraction. “The bullet went right through you; it was the dirt and the bits of fabric from your shirt that were the problem. We just need to keep an eye on it from now on, make sure the wound doesn’t fester, change the dressings every few hours.”

Dean looked impressed.

“You know your stuff.”

Castiel looked away. He did not like the way Dean was looking at him—familiar, like an equal.

“I’ve done this before,” he said quietly.

“Well, that sounds like an interesting story.”

“One I won’t be telling.”

He heard Dean sigh.

“Well, thanks anyway,” he said quietly. “For saving my life, I mean.”

Castiel did not like this, did not want this outlaw’s gratitude. He could feel anger rising in him, like molten lava emerging from deep, dormant rock.

“You think I saved your life?” Castiel asked him incredulously. “I don’t get paid until you hang, remember?”

Dean smiled sarcastically.

“How could I forget?”

Despite himself, Castiel wanted to argue, to slap some sense into him. Dean Winchester was going to die; it was absolute, unavoidable. If fate such existed it would be written in the stars. Most men in his position would seek to hate the man that had imprisoned them, but in Dean there was no animosity, and instead something so bewildering it unnerved Castiel completely.

“Sleep,” he ordered quietly. “You’re still too weak to travel.”

“Fine by me,” Dean said with false cheer, settling his head back on the pillow. “The longer I can prevent my untimely death the better.”

They did not speak the rest of the night. Castiel could hear Dean’s light snores from the worn, bloodied bed. He had nowhere to sleep himself, except the chair at the dining table. He slept like that a while, one arm on the table acting as a pillow, the other on his revolver strapped to his side.

He woke early the next day; his neck and back achingly stiff. He cleaned the cabin as best he could, discarded the bowls of rotting food and searched the cabinets for anything worth eating.

“What is it?” Dean asked haughtily, as Castiel set a cold tin and rusted spoon upon his lap.

“Beans.”

Dean smiled at him hopefully.

“Got any meat?”

“Your horse is outside,” Castiel offered, and Dean immediately picked up the spoon and started eating.

“Delicious,” he said, a pained look in his eyes and his mouth full to bursting.

They remained like this, subdued together, for the next few hours. Castiel busied himself with clearing debris and rubbish from the cabin, whilst Dean took great pleasure in complaining about his shoulder pain, of his sheer, agonising boredom—until Castiel relented and shut him up with a healthy dose of morphine. Dean slept the rest of the day, and Castiel was grateful for the silence.

The silence didn’t last forever, unfortunately. As nightfall approached, Dean stirred once more.

“How are you feeling, Mr. Winchester?” Castiel asked the outlaw politely.

“I’m fine, I guess,” he answered simply. “Oh, and call me Dean,” he added. “I won’t have you address me like I’m some kinda gentleman. What’s your name, anyway?”

Castiel looked away.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Okay,” said Dean, chuckling, “nice to meet you, Doesn’t Matter.”

“Quiet,” Castiel ordered suddenly.

“What is it?”

“There’s a storm coming,” he said, unable to hide the panic in his voice.

“How’d you know?”

Castiel stared out the window, his expression a mix of distance and foreboding as he studied the world outside.

“The clouds are billowing to the east,” he said quietly after a moment, “and the birds, they’re circling low; most are headed for shelter. We should stay here.”

“A little rain never hurt nobody,” Dean said light-heartedly, but Castiel could not tear his eyes away from the window.

“My horse doesn’t like the rain,” was all he said.

They stayed in the cabin for two more days, only speaking to one another if it concerned the horses or Mr. Winchester’s wound. He was no longer asking for morphine, even though Castiel could tell the pain was still near unbearable. He wasn’t sleeping either, judging by the soft silence of his breathing compared to the muffled snores Castiel had become acquainted to. Perhaps he was bidding his escape; counting on Castiel to have his guard lowered, the sound of the storm muffling his movement and the sound of his horse’s hooves. It was the dead of night, and the storm was at its angriest. If he were to flee, it would be the perfect time to do it. But Dean wasn’t stupid. He knew Castiel was awake from his spot at the dining table. In the darkness, Castiel heard him; the outlaw’s voice a murmur from across the lodge.

“Me and my brother,” he said quietly, as if speaking to himself, “we’re not bad people. This is the hand we were dealt; we’re just living it.”

Castiel frowned. It was strange to hear him try and justify his actions. He had been Castiel’s prisoner for over four days, after all. It seemed odd to repeal his fate now.

“You chose this life,” was all Castiel said, but Dean shook his head fiercely in reply.

“I was born into this life. I had no choice.”

“We all have choices,” responded Castiel irritably. “You chose to follow your father’s.”

He seemed to have struck a nerve. Dean sat up so quickly it was as if his injury had miraculously healed, perhaps out of spite.

“You don’t know anything about my father,” he said darkly, his chest heaving.

Castiel merely blinked.

“He was a killer. A thief. A menace to society. That’s all I need to know.”

“You’re wrong.”

Castiel looked at him, almost smiling out of incredulity.

“You deny your father’s crimes?”

“He never killed anyone who didn’t deserve it,” Dean said, and his anger seemed forgotten. “Like you.” Castiel could see him now, looking at him in that strange, familiar way. “I lied before. I know who you are. I recognise you from the papers: you’re Castiel. Castiel Novak. You assassinated senator Dick Roman during his inauguration speech. Put a bullet in him,” he pointed at a spot between his eyes, “right here. They didn’t put you in chains for it, though, did they? They didn’t put _your_ neck to the gallows. They made you famous, called you legend.

Dick Roman deserved to be killed,” he said after a pause. “I know it; you know it. But you didn’t kill him for money, for revenge, for the whims of those more powerful—you did it for you, for your code. Yeah,” he said, noting the fresh anger emerging on Castiel’s face, “I know about your code; read it on the back of a cigarette card.”

Castiel’s fingers twitched. They ached, pleaded to wrap themselves around the pistol he wore on his side, and aim it at the place Dean had pointed to a moment before. The money be damned. Castiel’s promise be damned. How _dare_ he. How dare he speak as if any semblance of him could possibly comprehend it.

“My code is my own,” Castiel said finally, and he was surprised at just how calm he sounded.

Dean laughed unkindly.

“Your ‘code’ is available in most general stores for just $2.50.”

Castiel stood up quickly, his trigger itch returning.

“Mr. Winchester,” he said, his voice commanding, “say another word and I will gag you.”

“Gag me, then,” Dean shrugged, “but when they hang me, you’ll know. If it weren’t me, it’d just be somebody else. There’ll _always_ be somebody else, or they couldn’t justify paying you. You understand?”

Castiel was seething. His code… his code was his lifeline, the one constant in his life that had not yet disappointed him. He had never uttered a word to anyone of the five laws that ruled him, except to one man… the man that made him. Had he sold Castiel’s words, his secret, to the highest bidder? Indeed, it was his killing of Dick Roman that had made him famous, had turned his once insignificant name to myth—but it was his code that had seen him to it, a sliver of clarity in a world of carnage. Dean Winchester thought Castiel had put a bullet in senator Roman’s head for justice. He did not know the truth. No one did.

The storm was raging. Rain spattered the cabin’s windows in a loud, harsh downpour. He could hear the horses, though safe and dry in the stable, whinnying anxiously. He understood their fear, their confusion. He knew the power of a storm.

“Rest,” he forced himself to say then, refusing to look into the outlaw’s scornful, mocking eyes. “The storm should have passed by morning. We’ll set off to Coalfell then.”

He seated himself at the dining table and rested his head on his arm. He had not slept for so long, his eyes were tender and itchy. Dean would be a fool to try and flee now, not with his injury, not with the storm so potent. Castiel knew it would be safe to rest, if only for a short while.

He closed his eyes and fell asleep almost immediately, but the sound of the storm was loud, and unforgiving, and he found himself dreaming of that night, eighteen years ago…

_“Please, Papa,” Castiel begged, his hands grasped together in prayer. “Stop it. Please, Papa, forgive me.”_

_They were on the edge of the homestead where the river was at its widest. The rain had not stopped for seven days, and the river overflowed the banks and had turned the grass to marshland. Castiel’s feet stuck in the sloppy, thick mud as he backed further towards the river, where the water flowed so rapidly, so powerfully, one wrong step would have seen him lost in it._

_“‘Wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God,’” his pa said, speaking so torturously slowly, so painstakingly clear, the declaration could have come from the heavens themselves. Castiel looked at his pa, begged him silently. He realised with desperate, childlike fear that there was nothing in his father’s eyes that seemed familiar._

_He had been a fool, a heedless sinner so wrapped up in boyish curiosity that he had damned himself in a single heartbeat. They had told themselves it was innocent—of course it had been—they were but boys of sixteen, so drunk on youth and marvel that, surely, one simple act could not offend God, could not tarnish their souls completely. Castiel had read the stories of knights and adventurers by the guise of his candle late at night, for pa did not allow his sons to read anything other than the Lord’s Bible. The men in these stories had killed their enemies and saved the maidens fair; their heroics always rewarded with a kiss on the final page. Castiel was curious. Castiel was lonely. His brother was a good son, reliable in the field and as devout as their pa. They feared God more than they loved him, yet from the passages Castiel had memorised he just couldn’t understand._

_“’If a man has relations with a man as one does with a woman,” his pa recited, walking towards him slowly, “both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.’”_

_Castiel began to cry._

_“Pa,” he pleaded. “We never. I swear it. It was a kiss. Just a kiss…”_

_“‘Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit,” his pa continued, getting closer, “who is in you, whom you have received from God. You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore you must honour God with your body.’”_

_“I do, pa. I honour him every day. Please forgive me. Please help me be a better son.”_

_But he couldn’t see his father, couldn’t familiarise the strange new look in his eyes, of the way they seared through him as cold as steel._

_Castiel could not walk anymore. If he kept walking, he would fall, be swept away by the river unto the edge of the world. He couldn’t leave his pa, not the man he loved and feared both at once—even as his pa’s hands rose and wrapped themselves around his throat. Not even as his face was submerged in water, and the rain of the storm became his anchor, his final parting. He could not see, or breathe, or move. He was helpless as a baby in his mother’s womb. Not that he had ever known his mother—he had never even learned her name._

_His world was getting darker the harder his pa squeezed. Castiel tried to be a good son, tried to die obediently—and yet in his hand he felt a rise, a diminutive climb in the earth that had not yet been submerged by the storm. He enveloped his hand in it, and with one final ounce of strength, picked it up from the ground and smashed into his pa’s head._

_Immediately, the grip on his neck released, and Castiel took in a huge, uncontrolled breath—a breath of the river that had already seeked to drown him. He pulled himself out of it; coughing and regurgitating the cold liquid until his throat was finally clear enough to breathe the air. Castiel rested on the side of the bank, so exhausted he had not the time or the inclination to wonder why his pa was no longer trying to kill him._

_It was not until he heard a voice, a sound so like his own, speak simply above him from his place on the muddied grass:_

_“He’s dead.”_

_Castiel looked up. His brother, his twin, was staring down at something beside him, a form splayed out on the bank as pitifully as a forgotten animal. Blood pooled from their pa’s head where the rock had hit him, the wound deep and dark as wine. His blood seeped into the river as effortlessly as if the storm itself had wrought it._

_Castiel tried to get up, but he was so dizzy he could barely see._

_“He was… going to kill me,” he said, though his voice seemed so quiet and far away he could not be sure if his brother could hear him. “Jimmy,” he tried again, trying to look his kin in the eye. “You must believe me. You do, don’t you? I was… defending myself.”_

_His brother did not reply, and in his silence Castiel became more aware, his sight clearer. He could truly comprehend now the corpse of their pa beside him._

_“Please, Jimmy,” he said, and his voice sounded high-pitched like a child. “Tell me what to do. I’m so scared.”_

_His brother did not look at him, his gaze searing instead into the corpse of their father._

_“Run,” he said._

_“What?”_

_Jimmy closed his eyes, and spoke once more in an expressionless voice._

_“Run away and don’t come back.”_

_“No,” Castiel begged, trying to pull himself up but only managing to get to his knees. “Have mercy on me, please. You’re my brother. You’re all I have.”_

_Jimmy still did not look at him._

_“In five minutes,” he began collectedly, “I will ride into town, and I will tell the sheriff pa was murdered by a man who wore a mask. When I get back, I want you gone. From this moment on we are no longer brothers. We are no longer family.”_

_“Don’t say that, Jimmy,” implored Castiel, refusing to measure the finality in his brother’s words. “Please. I don’t know where to go. Please don’t send me away.”_

_“You’re not well, Castiel,” Jimmy said, and his voice cracked for the first time, his shame inexorable. “I saw you with him, with Martha Cuthbert’s son.”_

_Castiel stared at his brother._

_“It was you?” he asked him desperately. “You told pa?”_

_Castiel tried to understand, to fathom it. He had done a bad thing and his brother had seeked to reform him, and in telling their father he hoped it would have been enough. Jimmy was an obedient, god-fearing son, and he wanted Castiel to be the same. They looked so alike, why could that not be enough?_

_Castiel stared into the river, and he could swear the Devil Himself was beckoning him from the stream._

_“I can’t forgive you for this, Cas,” he heard his brother say, his voice almost drowned by the rumbling of the storm, “but by God’s mercy I can still save you. I won’t let them know it was you... It was the man in the mask.”_

_“Jimmy—” Castiel tried a final time, but his brother grabbed him by his collar and forced him to his feet._

_“I said GO!” he yelled, throwing Castiel so hard he almost tripped over the corpse on the bank._

_Castiel forced himself from the muddy ground, dragged his feet through the thick, sloppy mire. He had not a mind to call his horse, collect his belongings, anything. He simply hauled himself down the river, his kin’s cold words echoing in his head like thunder in the storm, the Devil laughing beside him all the way._


	8. Chaos and Consequence

His body was stiff, his fingers close to freezing, but they had arrived at the mountain without incident. The ground was specked in a thin sheet of snow and Sam could see his breath in the air, like warm vapour, or smoke.

“Now I haven’t seen Rufus in a couple years,” he heard Bobby say from beside him. He had been so lost in thought he’d almost forgotten the old man was there. They had ridden in almost complete silence the past few hours, and it had allowed Sam to torture himself with every step of his horse’s hooves. If Dean were dead, if this journey were a wasted one, Sam would never forgive himself.

“Last time I was here,” Bobby continued, “he chased me halfway down the mountain with a shotgun.”

It was a funny thought, one that would have made him laugh had he not been so full of worry. They could not afford to leave here empty-handed.

“That’s comforting,” Sam said lamely.

Bobby chuckled.

“Let’s just hope he’s gotten lazy in his old age.”

They continued a few minutes more, Bobby leading the way. They had reached a levelling, of flatter ground, and a deluge of trees that littered the way. It was a desolate place, so devoid of anything, even animals. Most men would be driven mad to live in such loneliness, but Sam could see the appeal. At least no one would know him here, on this lonely mountain. He could imagine building a home, never fearing to leave it, his children growing up, learning to read and build instead of how to shoot and kill.

It was a cruel thought, this daydream of a life he would never have—but his mind so liked to torture him, his thoughts endless and loud; he could not remember the last time he had known true silence.

“That’s his place, just there,” Bobby said, forcing him back. There was a shabby-looking cabin a few metres away. It looked old and unfriendly, but at least it would be warmer inside.

They hitched the horses against the crudely built fence that surrounded the cabin, and quickly fed them a meal of oats before turning in, and opened the gate.

He had been stupid not to notice it, the contraption. As soon as the gate began to open, a lever that was attached sprung and set off a series of alarms, of bells and tin cans, rattling their loud and droning tune.

They heard another noise, a shuffling from inside the cabin, then a voice:

“I’ll give you five seconds to get off my property before I blow you away!”

“Bobby…” Sam said warily, but Bobby merely shook his head.

“Now is that any way to treat old friends, Rufus?” he asked the bodiless voice.

“I don’t have friends.”

“You got at least two,” Bobby retorted, “you stubborn old fool.”

“Three seconds!”

“Rufus,” warned Bobby, his tone darkening, “in case you forgot, you owe me one.”

“I don’t owe you shit, Bobby Singer,” Rufus replied bitterly.

“Oh,” he laughed, “so you do remember me? Then you might recall Sam Winchester here?”

“I recall.”

“Hello, Rufus,” Sam said, a little shyly. “It’s good to er, see you again.”

“Rufus,” Bobby called again, “it’s been five seconds. We’re still alive. Now why don’t you open that door and invite us in. We’ve been riding for two days and our asses hurt.”

“Not my problem.”

Bobby sighed, and shook his head.

“All right, Sam, let’s go…” he said, turning around. “We said our piece; that’s all we can do.”

“Bobby, you’re not giving up?” Sam asked him desperately. How could he, after all this effort, all this wasted time? Again, Bobby just shook his head.

“Shh,” he said, and he was looking at him in a knowing way, a slight smile on his face.

“Yeah, let’s go,” he said, his voice rising. “We can find somewhere else to drink this bottle of Old Grand-Dad, all right?”

“Wait a minute, now wait a minute!” They heard the door open, and running steps. They stopped, turned around; there was a shit-eating grin painted on the old man’s face.

“Did you say Old Grand-Dad?”

* * *

The bottle sat half-empty on Rufus’s table, the two glasses of the older men having seen their fair share. Rufus and Bobby were in fits, having recalled a time from their younger days. Sam’s cup had remained empty after the first drink; the taste of it so severe the burn still scorched his throat.

Sam laughed along with them now, made the odd reaffirming comment, but inwardly he was feeling alienated and impatient. His leg was shaking restlessly from beneath the table, his eyes darting to the pocket watch he held in his hand—over an hour, and still no mention of Rufus’s guns.

“Oh, man,” said Rufus, as he wiped away tears of laughter from his eyes. “I missed this.”

Bobby nodded in agreement.

“It’s good to catch up,” he said.

Rufus looked at him impertinently.

“I was talking about the bourbon.”

The men fell about laughing once more. Sam smiled, though he felt his jaw tense.

Rufus suddenly seemed to notice him, then. He peered at Sam with a glazed, brazen look in his eyes.

“You got tall, Sam,” he said after a moment, “and handsome. Man,” he took another long, keen swig of his drink, “to be young again…”

Bobby chuckled quietly.

“Don’t I know it?”

“We got into some scrapes, din’t we, old man?”

Bobby smiled, though the laughter in his eyes had started to disappear.

“We had a good run.”

Rufus seemed to notice it, because he, too, was no longer smiling. He watched Sam for a moment, his stare blatant and unashamed. It made Sam feel small—like a child.

“Bet your daddy told you I was coward for leaving, huh?” he asked him plainly.

Sam blinked, embarrassed.

“He never said that.”

“Well, doesn’t matter now, does it?” Rufus said indifferently, taking another sip. “John got himself killed, just like I said he would.”

Bobby eyed him carefully from across the table.

“Rufus,” he said, his tone warning.

“He was a stupid, stupid man,” Rufus continued, all cheer from his voice gone, quelled at the last of his drink. “Didn’t know how good he had it—and he had to throw it all away.”

“Rufus,” Bobby repeated patiently, “we didn’t come here to talk about John.”

“So what did you come here to talk about?”

Bobby finished his drink in one, long sip. He set the glass down on the table, and breathed out slowly.

“You still in the arms business?” he asked finally.

Rufus huffed, and crossed his arms.

“So what if I am?”

“We wanna buy from you,” he said.

“Why?”

Sam and Bobby exchanged glances.

“Dean got caught,” Sam said after a pause. “They’re gonna hang him.”

“And you want my guns because…”

“To save him, of course.”

“Why?” Rufus asked again.

“Why?” Sam repeated. “Because he’s family.”

“Family don’t mean shit, Sammy.”

The sound of his nickname made his skin prickle, a flash of fury behind his eyes. He closed them; let the anger disappear like smoke through the nose.

“Don’t call me that,” was all he said.

Bobby sighed.

“Look, Rufus,” he said plainly. “We’ve got money. We don’t need you to agree with our cause, you just need to sell to us, and then we’ll leave you alone.”

“I couldn’t sell to you even if I wanted,” Rufus remarked bitterly.

“And why is that?” Bobby asked him, rubbing his eyes in near defeat.

“I’m out.”

Bobby blinked.

“You’re out?”

“Yup. Got no more guns to sell.”

“Are you joking?” said Sam, his quiet fury returning. “We spent two days getting here. Dean could already be dead for all I know. Now you’re telling us you don’t have anything?”

Rufus was looking at him like he wanted to tear his eyes out, but when he spoke, his voice was even, as restrained as time.

“Son,” he said, “I did not invite you here. The only reason I let you inside my house was so I could have a stiff drink. Now my drink is finished, and it’s time for you to leave.”

Sam stood from his chair, as if to obey him, but he did not move. He was young, but he was tall, too, maybe even intimidating. He glowered at Rufus, who seemed small now, and so very old.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said.

Rufus rose from his own chair slowly. They stood inches from each other.

“You will not threaten me in my own home, boy,” said Rufus darkly, his breath warm and stinking of drink. “I have not taken orders from a Winchester in almost ten years.”

Bobby was the third to stand. He went over to them, put a hand on Sam’s chest, and pushed them away from each other. He looked at Sam like a disapproving father.

“Stop,” he said. “What’s the matter with you, huh?”

Sam said nothing. Now the moment was over, he was a little ashamed. Lately, it was so easy to make him angry…

“Listen, Rufus,” Bobby said, his tone low but firm. “You owe me. Deep down you know that.”

Rufus was looking at him as if he were about to hit him, to strike him down where he stood, but the moment seemed to have passed him, too, and Bobby did have a way of calm about him, a talent for subduing conflict.

“Goddammit, Bobby,” he said, giving up. “All right… If you must know, my stock was stolen by a gang of inbreeds known as the Ryker Gang. Stormed this place a couple weeks back, cleared me out. God only knows why they didn’t kill me. Hell, I asked ‘em to enough times. Anyway, last I heard they were camped in a cave southwest of here, next to the river.”

Bobby grabbed his coat from the back of the chair, and put it on.

“Appreciate it,” he said, passing Sam his own.

They opened the door back into the cold, but Rufus called out after them.

“Don’t thank me,” he said bitterly. “Here’s hopin’ they kill you.”

“See you soon, Rufus,” was all Bobby said, quite unaffected.

They began to walk down the path and out the gate, but it seemed Rufus was not quite satisfied with Bobby having the last word.

“You know,” he said, “even if you do get the guns back and save your brother, surely you’ve learnt by now there’ll just be something else down the road?”

Sam stopped. He turned around, and Rufus let out a laugh as cold as the afternoon air.

“Folk like us do not get happy endings,” he said, and slammed the door.

They left their horses hitched outside Rufus’s cabin, as the way to the cave was steep and winding. They walked in silence; Sam slightly ahead. He was frustrated. Frustrated with the journey that had left them cold and famished, frustrated with Rufus, who had grown ever more stubborn and unlikable since going his own way.

As if reading his mind, Bobby spoke:

“You need to control that temper of yours, Sam.”

Sam frowned, but said nothing.

“Scowl all you want,” Bobby said sagely, without even needing to look, “you know I’m right.”

“But he was so, so—”

“What,” Bobby asked amusedly, “difficult? Selfish? Rufus is a good man, deep down, but he has lived far too long and suffered far too much to simply be nice to people, even the ones he loves.”

“He has no love for the Winchesters,” Sam said hotly, but Bobby shook his head.

“You’re wrong,” he said. “I know it may not seem that way, but it killed Rufus to leave the gang. You don’t remember what it was like before…”

“What, before Yellow Eyes killed my mother?”

He was so sick of it, this talk of the glory days. Those days were long gone, stolen from him, never to be known. His father had died with his vengeance, with his hatred. It was all he ever had. That is what Sam had told himself, because the thought of him being any different was cruel, and filled him with an undeniable envy—because Sam had never known him as the good father, the strong leader, or the loyal friend. He knew only the John filled with obsession and revenge. It was easier that way, because it meant he had not lost anything, had nothing to miss.

“Don’t raise your voice at me, boy,” said Bobby, and it were as if his father was speaking to him. “I’m trying to help you.”

Sam looked at Bobby, and sighed. He was trying to help him, of course he was. He knew he could not take his anger out on the only person he had left.

“I know,” he said, embarrassed, scuffing the snow with his boot. “Sorry.”

They carried on further, until the sound of a stream became discernible. They walked until the earth became rock and mounded from the earth.

“This must be it.”

There was light coming from inside the cave, an orange blaze that tickled the walls, the sounds of several voices carrying through. They got out their guns and walked quietly through it.

There were five men in the belly of the cave, sat around a welcoming fire, drinking and smoking without a care in the world.

“Plan?” whispered Sam.

“They’re drunk, they won’t be much trouble. Let’s try and do this the friendly way.”

Sam sighed, he knew the minds of men too well to know that the friendly way was not always the viable option, but he did not want to question Bobby, not after the way he had been acting. He would do as the old man said, and if they ran into trouble, he would deal with it.

“Fellers,” Bobby said jovially, his gun back in its holster for good measure.

The men at the fire put down their drinks, stubbed out their cigarettes, and raised their weapons, albeit clumsily.

“The fuck are you doin’ here?” one of them asked.

“Easy, easy,” Bobby said. “You the Ryker boys?”

“Who you been talkin’ to?”

“No one,” he said, though his voice betrayed a lie, “we just came here to ask for a favour, that’s all.”

“A favour?” the man repeated suspiciously. “You must be even more stupid than you look. Boys, come on—”

But Sam had raised his own weapon, and shot them all, so quickly it were as if he’d snapped his fingers and God Himself had willed it. They fell together, and died together, their faces still wrought in surprise and anger.

“So much for the friendly way,” Bobby said.

He sighed, but said nothing more. He walked around the pile of bodies and began his search for any signs of Rufus’s guns.

Sam was about to follow suit, when he heard a hitched breath, a gurgle of sorts. He walked over to them, noted their blank faces as they stared up at him—except for one. The bandit on the end, the youngest one, no older than sixteen, was blinking, trying to breathe through the blood in his throat. Sam bent down, and put a hand to his face.

“Sam?” he heard Bobby ask, but he ignored him.

The boy’s eyes settled on his, and he opened his mouth.

“Get the… fuck off me…” he struggled.

Sam put the gun to his head, and spoke clearly.

“Two weeks ago you stole the guns of a man named Rufus Turner. Are they here? Tell me.”

“Those guns… belong to Azazel.”

“Azazel?”

The name was strange, ancient. He’d read it in the Bible once, of a demon, a fallen angel.

“Who’s that?” he asked the boy.

“Most folks… know him by his nickname: Yellow Eyes…”

_Yellow Eyes._

Sam pushed the gun harder against the boy’s head.

“You work for Yellow Eyes?” he asked slowly, carefully.

“Work for him?” the boy asked, laughing until he spat blood. “Wouldn’t that be nice? No… He _owns_ me. Owns this entire county. He owns _you_ , he just don’t care for you to know it yet...”

“Sam,” he heard Bobby say from his corner of the cave. “The guns are here. Just ignore him, he ain’t talking sense.”

But he _was_ talking sense. In a way, he made all the sense in the world.

Sam did not need his gun anymore. He threw it away from him, grabbed the dying boy and lifted him, so close their foreheads were almost touching.

“Where is he?” he demanded.

“Sam,” Bobby said, a little worriedly.

“Tell me where he is!” he screamed into the boy’s face, but he only laughed once more.

“You think you can take him? Men smarter and stronger have been tryin’ for years.”

He punched the boy, his skin, soft as a child’s, now marred with blood and spit.

“ _Tell me!_ ”

He punched the boy again. His fist ached, sure to have broken bone, but he did not relent.

“Sam, stop!” Bobby called, panic in his voice. “We have the guns, let’s go!”

But Sam punched the boy again, and again, watched, as his face became a pulp. It was like something had snapped in Sam, or awoken. He had only ever killed a man with a bullet of his gun. Impersonal, detached—but this was personal, almost intimate. He felt his knuckle crack as it made contact with the boy’s teeth. He stopped, panting. By God’s miracle the boy was still breathing.

“Finish the job, mister…” the boy whispered, and a mound of blood in his mouth bubbled and popped, spattering his lips and down his chin. His face was barely recognisable, if not for the twisted grin that now formed it.

“Finish me off,” he said again. “Azazel will do much worse once he finds out I lost his guns...”

“Sam,” said Bobby, “pull yourself together! What is the matter with you? You never cared about the Colt before!”

“I don’t care about the Colt!” Sam retorted, incredulous that he would even assume it. “Azazel killed my parents! I can’t just forget that.”

“Sam,” Bobby said, grabbing a hold of his collar and dragging him up viciously, “we did not come here for revenge. Your brother’s life depends on us.”

He had his hands on Sam’s shoulders, and shook him like an unruly child.

“What matters to you more, huh? Look at me! What matters more?”

Sam stared back at him, his hands shaking. For the first time in his life, he didn’t know.

They left the cave a while later, the guns rested in a wooden cart they pulled together with some difficulty. It was heavy, and the ground was uneven and steep. They walked together in silence, until the earth began to even and they were once more walking on flat ground. They would return the guns to Rufus, buy the ones they needed, and make the harsh ride back to Bobby’s. Sam could not wait to be rid of this place.

“You didn’t have to kill that Ryker boy, you know,” Bobby said irritably from beside him, panting slightly. “He wasn’t a threat.”

Sam fought the urge to scowl, instead answered simply:

“You heard what he said. Azazel would have done worse.”

“It’s true, Sammy,” they heard a voice say from behind the trees, “I would have done worse.”

Eight men revealed themselves; well groomed, well dressed, each armed with a gun of varying size. They had their guns raised, their fingers on the trigger, but somehow Sam knew they would not fire. Amidst these men was another, a lone figure who looked at Sam like an old friend. He was the man who had spoken, the man from Sam’s dreams. His eyes were a bright yellow; so unnatural to look at he could have been an animal, a predator marking his next prey. He was smiling at Sam, and his face looked cruel and loving both at once. He had his arms outstretched, as if they were about to embrace.

“Azazel,” Sam forced himself to say.

The man nodded, bowing theatrically.

Sam had not thought he had inherited his father’s vengeance—but staring at his killer now, he was overcome with a longing, a dark, disturbing need to enact punishment on this man—to destroy him as he had done his family. He could do it; shoot him at that very moment while his neck was arched. Sam looked at Bobby—a quick glance—and Bobby looked back, in a way that deemed he understood. Sam put a hand on his holster, and then he heard a scream.

“ _Sam!_ ”

A tenth man appeared, and in his arms he held the bound and terrified figure of Jessica Moore. Sam’s heart stopped beating; his shooting hand fumbled and fell back to his side. She was bleeding from a wound on her head; her face wrought with tears. She was still wearing the pretty blue dress from the night he’d bid her goodbye, just outside the perimeters of her father’s ranch. Sam had not seen her through it, had been so full of selfish sorrow that he had mounted his horse and rode away without a second glance. It was then they must have taken her. Sam had failed, just as he had failed Dean, and now here she stood, the captive of a man who so liked to kill the ones he loved.

“Jessica,” he said, and his voice was barely a whisper. He could not try anything now, could not fire his weapon and go down in a blaze of glory. He had to keep her safe. So he stood there, merely looked at her as she sobbed tragically, reaching out to him with her one free hand. The man who held her was young, perhaps their age. Dark-skinned and sturdy; his grip was firm, and he averted his gaze when Sam looked at him, as if he were ashamed.

He felt hands on him then; felt his gun removed from its holster. He did not fight it, only looked at Jessica in the hope she knew how sorry he was.

Azazel smiled from his place in the middle, sighing contentedly at the scene.

“Such a special, special day,” he said, “uniting two lovers. What a wonderful feeling.”

He looked at the cart of artillery behind them, and nodded gratefully.

“Thank you for bringing my guns to me, son,” he said, and now he was looking at Sam as if starved. He took a step closer, and Sam dared himself not to look away, to keep his gaze unwavering on those unnatural, carnal eyes. “You know, I’ve been watching you a lot of years,” Azazel went on. “I really wanted our reunion to be perfect, tortured myself over it, really… but there was never an opportune moment, not until now. There are so many… so many things I wish to tell you, Sammy.”

A childish, trivial anger bubbled inside Sam.

“Don’t call me that!” he cried, and immediately felt a fool for his outburst. He could not help himself. He could not bear to hear that name spoken, not the name his brother used to call him. He could not be reminded of Dean; not now when he was so aware of all the ways he had failed him.

Some of the men were laughing, but Azazel merely sighed, his yellow eyes brimming with greed.

“Sammy, Sammy, Sammy,” he said slowly, taking a step forwards. “You’re angry. You want to kill me. I know, because I understand you more than anyone. But I want you to know that I accept your anger. In fact, I want you to use it, Sammy, _embrace_ it. Only then will you be free.”

He turned his head to the man on his right, a tired-looking soul, defeated, with lines on his face that seemed borne of trauma rather than age.

“Give him the gun,” he ordered simply.

The man walked over without a word, pulled a gun from the back of his belt and placed it in Sam’s hand.

He did not need to look down at the weapon to know what it was. He recalled the long, thin barrel of silver, the metal decorated like a piece of art, the Latin phrase etched on the side. It was the gun that had caused so much trouble, so much needless longing. He wondered what Dean would say if he knew Sam was holding the Colt in his hands, their father’s legacy. It felt light, and warm, like his father’s hands.

“You recognise it, don’t you, Sammy?” Azazel asked. “Beautiful thing, impeccably crafted. I truly am honoured to have possessed it these past five years. It feels good to hold it, doesn’t it?”

To Sam’s surprise, it was.

“Now, before you get that trigger itch,” Azazel continued, forcing Sam back to focus, “let me tell you something. You turn the Colt on yourself, on me, on any of my men? All three of you will die. You hear me?”

“Do you hear me?” he asked again, taking a step closer.

Sam swallowed.

“Yes.”

“Good,” nodded Azazel. “Now, I have a request, an initiation, so to speak. I need you to make a choice for me, Sammy. It’s going to hurt. It’s going to feel really, really bad, but some day soon you will understand why I had to ask this of you. The Colt has inside it a single bullet, and I need you to decide whom to use it on. Make a choice, Sam. Who will you kill? The man you love as a father, who helped raise you since you were a boy? Or the sweet, sweet girl from the ranch, who gave you her innocence, who would have married you, had your children, if you asked? Make a choice, Sam.”

Sam felt the words wash over him, as if it were only the wind he had heard. _Make a choice._ He looked at Jessica. She was so exhausted now she no longer sobbed, instead hung there limply, merely supported by the man who held her. He looked at Bobby, and to his surprise he was smiling.

“Not them,” Sam pleaded to Azazel. He had killed so many men in his life, out of survival, out of desperation. Still, there came a detachment in shooting a man he did not know, had not learnt his name or delved into his history. They had not been his family. But these two people were.

“Kill me,” he said quietly, and he looked into Azazel’s eyes, pleaded with the hunger inside them. “Kill me instead.”

“You are brave, Sammy,” Azazel said. “You would do anything to save the ones you love. Except for Dean… You could have saved him if you really wanted to, back there in that clearing. You’re a good shot, boy; I’ve seen it. Why didn’t you shoot the bounty hunter?”

Sam stared, speechless.

“It was you?” he finally forced himself to say.

“I’m sorry?” Azazel asked, his tone so nonchalant Sam could have throttled him for it.

“You were there?” Sam asked, almost stumbling over the words. “You killed that man… You shot Dean.”

“Well, it wasn’t me who pulled the trigger,” Azazel answered unemotionally, “but, yes, I was there. I gave the order.”

“You shot at me!”

“I did tell them to miss,” Azazel smiled. “You just needed a little… encouragement, that was all. So much standing around...”

“Why?” Sam asked then.

“Why did we shoot your brother, and spare you?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Azazel said, and his voice was warm and soft and full of longing, as if he had been waiting to tell him this since the moment they had laid eyes on one another. “It’s because you’re special. Deep down I think you know that. Your father neglected you, chose vengeance over his own children, and your brother? An arrogant, self-loathing fool… He would have ruined you.”

“You’re wrong,” said Sam.

“But not you,” Azazel continued, as if he had not heard. “You’ve got a certain quality that I admire. It’s hard to put into words, I admit, but you’ve always been this way, since the day you were born. I am going to help you reach your full potential. I am going to guide you the way your father should have done, but failed. So, we killed that man in the clearing. Not his fault; he was merely a victim of circumstance. But Dean? He had far outlived his usefulness. We would have shot the bounty hunter, too, but… he slipped away.”

Azazel shrugged.

“Alas,” he said, “we have time to talk about this later. Back to the task at hand.”

He urged his head towards the Colt.

“I hate to rush you, Sam, but we’re running late as it is.”

He looked at the Colt, then at Jess, then Bobby.

“I can’t do it,” he said.

A glimmer of wrath flashed in Azazel’s eyes, but he quickly recovered.

“Can’t, or won’t?” he asked him.

“Won’t,” said Sam.

Azazel sighed, folded his arms.

“It hurts me to do this to you, Sam, truly,” he told him calmly, “but it is necessary. If you refuse, we’ll shoot both of them and leave their bodies to the wolves. You can prevent that.”

Sam stared at him.

“Why are you doing this to me?” he asked—no— _begged_.

“I want to make you strong, Sammy,” said Azazel. “I have so many plans for you; this is just the beginning.”

He felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned his head, and saw Bobby there, smiling, blinking back tears.

“Kill me, son,” he said kindly. “Kill me. I’m an old man. I’ve lived my life. Shoot me, Sam. Do it.”

But Sam shook his head.

“No, Bobby.”

“You know it’s the only choice, don’t you?” Bobby asked him. “Listen to me, Sam; I am so glad we got to see each other again. Leaving you and Dean was the worst thing I ever did.”

“Bobby…”

“It’s all right, son,” he assured. “It’s all right. I’ll be with Karen again.”

“I’m… I’m so sorry…”

Sam closed his eyes, yelled out, his cry a tangle of pain and fury. He pulled the trigger and awaited the echoing sound of fruition—yet all he heard was a click, an impotent jamming. He opened his eyes. Bobby was still alive, standing there shaking, but untouched. Sam opened the cylinder: it was empty.

Azazel laughed, and clapped his hands.

“Well, consider me pleasantly surprised,” he said, and at the look on Sam’s face laughed again. “What, you really thought we’d give you a loaded gun? But it’s nice to see you can follow orders. You’ll go far in the gang; I can tell.”

“You son of a bitch!”

Sam hurled the gun at Azazel, who caught it in one hand effortlessly.

“You’re angry? I thought you’d be relieved about the old man. Well, if you insist—”

“ _NO!_ ”

Azazel had pulled out his own gun, and had shot Bobby. Once—twice—in both knees. Bobby let out a garbled cry, and fell to the ground, the blood leaking as swift as rainwater.

Sam ran over to him, sinking to his knees.

“Stop it!” he screamed at Azazel, who still had his gun raised. “Stop it! Just… just let them go, and I’ll come with you. I promise. Just let them go.”

“I don’t think he’s going anywhere, do you?” Azazel asked his men; the question met with thunderous laughter.

“Jessica…” Sam said, too ashamed to look her in the eyes. “Release her, _please_.”

Azazel walked over to the girl, who recoiled as he took a strand of her golden hair and held it to his nose. He breathed in, long and slow, and a contented moan escaped his lips as he let go. He stroked her face.

“But she’s so soft and warm,” he said quietly. “I think we’ll find use for her back at the camp.”

His hand fell away, and he motioned to his men.

“Let’s go.”

“Uriel,” he ordered a bald, thick-set man, “take the cart. Load it to the carriage when we get there.”

“What shall we do with him?” asked another, the man who had handed Sam the Colt.

Azazel stopped, looked back at Bobby as if he had only just remembered he was there. He studied him a moment.

“Leave him,” he said finally, before walking away. “If we kill him, who would feed the pigs?”

Sam’s hands were bound behind him, and he was pushed forwards.

“Bobby,” he said, struggling to look behind him. “I’m so sorry.”

He called after Jess, who was so weak now she had to be carried.

“I’m so sorry. Jess. I’m so—”

But something hard and heavy had landed on the back of Sam’s skull. He fell to the ground; his body limp as a paper doll.


	9. To Victor, the Spoils

It was still a surprise to Dean that Castiel had such soft hands. Dean’s own were rough, scarred and calloused from years of riding horses and firing guns, but somehow Castiel’s weren’t. They were smooth like a woman’s, like he’d never worked a day in his life. It only added to the mystery of him.

He awoke to those familiar hands on him; gentle and proficient as they changed the dressing on his shoulder and cleaned the wound. These mornings had become routine for them now, and neither felt the need to speak. Dean was more than capable of treating the wound himself, but some part of him enjoyed this, this act of being cared for, of being touched. In truth, Dean hadn’t been touched in years. Of course, he’d been with plenty of women, the last being the whore Mabel at the Dry Gulch Saloon—but this way of tenderness, the patience of it, was unfamiliar to him, perhaps something new entirely. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine he was somewhere else, someone else; that the soft hands on him were of those that wanted him to feel something other than pain, or loneliness, or—

Dean opened his eyes with a start. The sheet wrapped against him had begun to uncrease and raise with the hardness of his cock. His eyes shifted to Castiel’s, who was busy applying ointment to Dean’s shoulder. Had he noticed the shift of the covers, the way Dean’s heart was now beating so fast it drummed throughout the entire room? He swallowed, cleared his throat. Castiel gave him a quick glance, but continued working. Dean’s hand shifted slowly towards the mound, and as it brushed against it he almost trembled.

Ashamed of himself, he rearranged the covers and stared straight ahead until Castiel was done.

“You’re healing fine,” the bounty hunter said, dabbing at his hands with a wet cloth. “I think you’re strong enough to travel, in fact.”

“Are you sure about that?” Dean tried limply. “It really does hurt, Doc.”

They had approached the inevitable, of course. They couldn’t stay like this forever, in their quiet little shack with the horses grazing outside. It was time, time to meet his fate in the little town of Coalfell that no one had ever fucking heard of.

“Is this really necessary?” he asked, as Castiel bound his hands together with rope and a knot so complicated Dean couldn’t help but wonder where he’d learned it.

“I can’t have you fleeing, can I?” the bounty hunter said, and despite the evenness of his tone, Dean found himself catching the subtle gleam in his eye.

They got on their horses and Castiel led the way; Dean’s reigns in his hand gripped tightly.

“How long to town?” Dean asked him.

“Coalfell?” he questioned. “Not long. Perhaps a day.”

“Sure you’re eager to get paid, havin’ to put up with me so long.”

“Yes,” Castiel said steadily after a moment.

It almost made Dean smile. Castiel was an odd sort; certainly not a conversationalist by any means, but there was a quiet charm about him nonetheless. In another life, they would have been friends.

“What made you take this job, anyway?” he asked after a few minutes of silence. “You heard of me before; wanted another famous name added to your list?”

“You think much too highly of yourself,” Castiel replied bluntly. “I had never heard of you, or your brother. I knew of John Winchester though, and the gang. I did not know he had children.”

“So,” started Dean, a little cheekily, “you thought it would look good on your record catching the sons of a cutthroat outlaw, huh?”

Castiel sighed.

“I do not do the things I do for fame, Mr. Winchester, unlike you. The only reason I came across this job, that unknown little town, is because I was told of them.”

“Told?”

Castiel sighed again.

“I was given a tip.”

“A tip?”

“Yes, Mr. Winchester, do I need to explain what a tip is?”

There it was again, that quiet charm; the subtle bite of wit that left Dean’s eyes rolling, but his lips curved in a smile all the same.

“Don’t get cute,” he said wryly. “Who told you about it?”

“None of your business.”

“Well, if you were told, perhaps they’ve been watching you. Maybe it was them that shot me.”

“No,” he countered quickly. “They wouldn’t—”

“So it is a they?”

Castiel turned around quickly, and gave Dean a warning glare. It would seem they had exhausted that conversation topic.

“Do not pry, Mr. Winchester,” he said sternly. “I will gag you the rest of the way.”

“Fine,” Dean dismissed. In truth, he really did not want to be gagged. He had far too much to say, and not nearly enough time to say it. “I’m interested in something else, anyway.”

“What?” asked the bounty hunter impatiently.

“Your code,” Dean started slowly; he remembered Castiel’s reaction when it had first been mentioned, that instant flash of anger in his eyes. But Dean was a curious man, and he hated to admit that Castiel had tempted something in him, a need to know the man behind the name.

“The cigarette card said you had one,” he continued carefully, “but didn’t exactly go into detail.”

“Good,” was all Castiel said.

“Come on,” Dean goaded. “What’s the harm in telling me? I’ll be a goner in a few days, remember? Your secret’s safe with me.”

Castiel did not reply for a few moments; deliberating, weighing his captive’s words. Indeed, who would Dean have to tell if he humoured him? He found himself grinning as the bounty hunter relented.

“Very well,” he said quietly. “Though I don’t expect the likes of you to understand.”

“Try me, buttercup.”

“There are… five rules I live by,” Castiel started, a tone of wariness to him.

“Go on,” Dean encouraged.

“First, I do not harm the innocent.”

Dean smiled sarcastically.

“Wonderful,” he said. “I’m sure schoolchildren are rejoicing everywhere.”

He heard Castiel sigh ahead of him. Still, the man continued.

“Second, I practise justice, never revenge.”

It made sense, Dean thought. Castiel seemed a disciplined sort, composed, restrained in his mannerisms, his speech, his posture, even. It only made sense it extended to his morality.

“Thirdly,” Castiel continued, “I never kill an unarmed man, or one whose back is turned. I give him fair warning, and always look him straight in the eye when I shoot. I am alive today simply because I was faster than the others, because I never missed.”

Castiel had never meant to shoot him on their first meeting, but still, he had caught Dean unawares and could have had him subdued quite easily. It was in his own rules that he announce his presence, even at his own peril. Honourable.

“Fourth rule?” Dean asked then, his interest in the man surmounting ever more.

“I accept responsibility for every life I end,” Castiel said. “My gun didn’t kill him. I did. I am the master of my own fate, and I accept what I am.”

“And what are you?”

“I’m a killer,” Castiel said, “nothing more.”

“Just a killer?” he asked, a little surprised. “Some would say that’s what makes you a legend.”

“Then they would be wrong,” Castiel replied; his tone so even Dean could not tell how he must be feeling, if he felt anything at all.

Castiel was still a metre in front, and all Dean could see was the back of his head. He so wanted to see his face, then, to study the look in his eye. He could feel his heartbeat quicken as he prepared his final question.

“And the last rule… What is the last rule Castiel Novak lives by?”

There was silence for a moment, the sound of the horses' hooves matching the pace of Dean’s heartbeat.

“Forgiveness,” the man said finally. “There is none, and I will never ask for it. To the widows I’ve made, to God. They cannot save my soul, and I wouldn’t ask it of them if they could.”

“I… respect that,” Dean said finally. “If there is a Hell, I know that’s where I’m going. I’ve done too many terrible things to kid myself otherwise. But I can accept that about myself, you know? I can accept that. In fact, I welcome it. Would I have been happy any other way? Would I have been content with an honest life? I was born free, Castiel. I lived my life on the back of a horse, in lawless country. I answered to no one. I mean, look at me—look at my weathered face, these galled fingers. I need to feel the wind on my skin, and I have. I could never be a rancher, a husband. Men like us can’t stay in one place for long; it’s in our blood. The open road is a part of me. The life of an outlaw is a part of me.”

“Do you mean that,” Castiel asked, after a pause, “or is it just something you tell yourself so you don’t feel alone?”

Despite himself, Dean couldn’t bring himself to answer.

* * *

He had never heard of Coalfell until the bounty hunter had mentioned it, and by the time they had arrived, travelled down its dreary, single street, Dean found himself quite affronted. An outlaw such as him should not have to die in a place such as this, a town of such mediocrity it had not even milestones to point in its direction.

It was quiet despite being the middle of the day. They reached the sheriff’s office, a reticent shack not unlike the other dozen buildings stood beside it. They got off the horses, Dean doing so with difficulty considering his hands were bound.

Castiel knocked on the door. Before Dean had time to blink it had opened to unveil a man dressed in uniform, the dark hair on his face groomed meticulously, and the fabric where his left arm should have been cut short and folded with a clasp. Dean stared at it; so Castiel really hadn’t lied.

Victor Henriksen met his stare, and his eyes widened in something between shock and elation, disgust and satisfaction. He tore his gaze away to note the bounty hunter’s sombre expression.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “You really did it.”

Castiel merely blinked.

“I said I would, didn’t I?”

“Although you did say you’d bring _both_ Winchesters,” the deputy reminded, glancing over Dean once more. “What happened?”

“I had to make a choice,” Castiel replied simply. “Sam got away. I will go back for him.”

“Well,” said Henriksen, shifting on his feet like a giddy child, “either way you’ve surpassed my expectations. Bring him inside.”

They followed the deputy into the office. It was sparse if not for a desk and drawers, and the room was swathed in a thick fog of tobacco smoke. As if reading Dean’s mind, Victor picked up a cigar from the table and lit it. He took out some keys from the inner layer of his waistcoat and unlocked a drawer. There was cash inside, more than Dean had ever seen at once. Henriksen counted the money quickly and tossed the bundle to Castiel.

“To the victor go the spoils,” he said. “I thank you, Mr. Novak, for your service.”

Castiel totalled it quickly. Satisfied, he put the wad in his pocket and nodded.

“I’ll be going, then.”

“Going?” Henriksen asked, almost chuckling. “I thought you’d want to see the execution. No doubt you’ve learnt the kind of man he is.”

Castiel looked at Dean; his eyes falling away just as quickly.

“Some what,” he said quietly.

“I would wanna watch him hang, if I were you,” the deputy noted smugly. “It’ll be a sweet kind of justice. Plus, I’ll send word to Sheriff White. He won’t wanna miss this, and I’m sure he’d like to meet you, thank you in person. Who knows, you might get more work outta this.”

Castiel shifted where he stood.

“I suppose I could stay a while,” he said finally.

“I’ll get you a room, then,” said Victor. “Free of charge, ‘course.”

“Thank you.”

“Well, Mr. Winchester...” the bounty hunter addressed him awkwardly. “Goodbye, then.”

“Castiel…” Dean started, and was immediately ashamed to sound so desperate, ashamed of the way he said his name and the way it reverberated within him. He did not want the deputy to see this, this weakness, this pathetic moment between them, but he could not stop himself.

“You know this is a mistake,” he finished lamely.

“Quiet,” the deputy demanded, but Dean ignored him. He focused on Castiel until it were only them in the room, in the entire world.

“Please,” he tried again, staring into the blue eyes he’d once found so cold and isolating, but had grown to see the comfort within. Castiel had saved his life, despite their current situation. Castiel had kept him safe. Treated him. Even fed his horse, for fuck’s sake. Surely there was more to him. Surely.

“You know I’m not the man they say I am.”

But his words were met with a sharpness—a slap from the back of a hand. Victor had struck him so forcefully he almost fell to the ground.

“I said quiet!”

Dean recovered. By the time he’d regained balance he’d already realised it was hopeless.

The deputy smiled at the bounty hunter without warmth, and gave Dean a rough pat on the back.

“Apologies,” he said, “the dog forgets his place. Go, settle yourself at the bar down the way. Drinks are on the house. I’ve got it from here.”

Castiel allowed a nod, a final look at Dean before leaving. Was it pity in his eyes, or apathy? He did not know, only he wished the man gone from his sight, to never see his face again. He had been quite the fool to try and gain the favour of a gun-for-hire. Castiel may have a code, a complexity beyond the legend, but deep down he was just like the others. Money was all that mattered to men like him. Hell, Dean couldn’t blame him for that, even if he wanted to. In his shoes, he would have done the same.

They were alone now, just him and Henriksen. They looked at each other like they were about to duel.

“I like seeing you tied up,” the deputy said finally.

“Henriksen,” Dean smiled devilishly, ignoring the sting in his cheek from the man’s hand, “I had no idea. I’m flattered, but I don’t swing that way.”

The man laughed once, humourlessly.

“You’ve got a mouth on ya’. I forgot.”

The deputy sized him up.

“I have been searching for you for two years,” he said contentedly, letting out a heavy sigh.

“That’s embarrassing for you,” Dean said. “It only took Castiel a week.”

Henriksen’s eye twitched, as it had done before he had smacked Dean the first time. He expected to be hit again, but the deputy controlled himself. In fact, he smiled.

“You know,” he told him, “a lot has changed since then, since the day you and your shithead brother killed those innocent people and blew off my arm. I got transferred. Promoted. My name means something in this town. I have real power now.”

Dean raised a brow mockingly.

“Congratulations.”

“I always wanted to ask, see,” the deputy continued, urging himself closer. “Why’d you do it? You had the money; you was already fleein’. Why?”

“If I told you the truth, you’d never believe it.”

Henriksen was so close now, Dean could smell the fresh tobacco on his breath.

“Try me,” the deputy whispered.

It had only been the Winchester brothers’ second bank job, and it had all gone so smoothly, had they thought. Now they’d heard the explosion as they’d ridden away, their sacks and pockets brimming with cash, but they’d never thought much of it. Had they bought a newspaper in the weeks following, they would have realised otherwise, of course, but that was a foolish idea. Instead they’d laid low until the news had forgotten them, and moved on to another county they hoped to rob blind. Dean had not thought of Henriksen and their robbery in the little town of Aston until the bounty hunter had spoken of it. And to think, that day had taken over the deputy’s entire existence; his personality, his life’s meaning resolving around it and nothing else.

“I remember you,” Dean said, “the town, all of it. Sam and I had settled ourselves there the week before. We weren’t as famous, then. None of you knew our faces, so it was easy, easy to scour the bank, study its weaknesses, its routine. Got friendly with the people, the lawmen, even you. No one was gonna get hurt.”

“But they did.”

They had gotten to know the deputy during their short stay there. He was an unwavering sort, perhaps more so because he had a point to prove above the others, because of his lot in life, the colour of his skin. Dean had respected him for it at the time, his sheer determination, his cockiness, his pride. Even now he respected him. Hell, he would never tell him that, but the man deserved the truth; as much of a truth Dean possessed, anyway.

“I have never killed a woman,” he told the deputy, his face unwavering. “As God is my witness, I can look you in the eye and say that. We never killed those people. We didn’t have dynamite, or explosives. We didn’t have time for that shit, even if we did. Once the money was ours we were out of there, as quiet as shadows.”

“Someone blew up that bank,” Henriksen said slowly. “The Winchesters robbed that bank. The way I see it, the only person I can blame is you.”

Dean smiled again.

“Then that’s fine with me.”

Henriksen did not like that. No doubt he’d had his pretty little speech memorised for years, every possible outcome rehearsed and expected apart from this one. It was both comical and infuriating to Dean, to play his game and be winning, even if only for the moment.

“I am going to enjoy watching you die,” Henriksen said, their faces inches away from one another. “I hope the fall doesn’t break your neck. I hope you survive that, truly, I do. I want you to die slowly, so I can watch the life leave your eyes, bloodshot and bulging as your face turns purple… and all the noise you can make is a quiet, pathetic moan, like a little animal. I will have justice; as God is my witness, I can look you in the eye and say that.”

He grabbed Dean’s shoulder then, his wounded one, and led him down the stairs. Dean did not give him the satisfaction of knowing he was hurting him. He remained quiet, his face still, as if the burn was so far away he barely felt it. When they reached the bottom, Dean was met with a single cell, small, with nothing in it but a bench and a pot to piss in.

Henriksen took out a set of keys, struggled to get them in and turn them. No doubt Coalfell sheriff’s office saw much action. He was perhaps the first to inhabit this cell in weeks, months, even—his own private suite, so to speak.

“This’ll be your home for the next couple days,” Henriksen said, pushing Dean through harshly, and locking the door behind him. “If you want to save your soul, I suggest you start prayin’.”

Dean thought about what Castiel had said, of the last rule in the gunslinger’s code. It brought him comfort now, at the end of his days.

“I am not looking for forgiveness,” he said resolutely.

“Good,” said Henriksen, turning to leave without a second glance. “You won’t get any.”

* * *

The cell was dark despite the day, for the little window on the upper right corner had been dirtied by the road, as if smeared deliberately by the miners’ coal. Dean tried to sleep, but the wooden bench he sat upon was barely long enough to hone feet to thigh. He would have settled himself on the ground, but really, he had become accustomed to the comfortable bed in the quiet little shack, his wounds treated with soft hands and softer words still. Had he enjoyed being Castiel’s prisoner? Three meals a day and a roof over his head, and the bounty hunter more gentle and reasonable than a captor ought to be. Those past few days had been more pleasant than Dean could bear to admit. That is why he could not rest. That is why he could not accept his fate, in a cell that was dark despite the sun aching through.

“Hello, Dean.”

For a moment he thought it was Castiel, come back to save him, but he was wrong. It was another, a voice he’d known… from before.

He turned his head. There was a figure staring at him from behind the bars. The man was tall, his face gaunt. In the darkness he was a monster, smiling at Dean with rotting teeth. His skeletal fingers encased themselves around the steel, squeezing so hard the bones in his hands looked about to pierce themselves free.

Dean stood up. Every instinct he had told him to back himself into a corner, make himself as small as possible, let his trimness be drowned by the shade—but he stood tall, and he looked the monster straight in the eye.

“Hello,” he said back.

Sheriff Alastair smiled, the gold badge he wore on his chest radiated mockingly in the dim light.

“It’s good to see you again, Dean,” he said, “to have you in my jail, at my mercy. I hope you have been treated well.”

“Oh, yeah, your deputy’s been very forthcoming,” Dean said, turning his face to the left so his bruise was visible. “Even gave me a little gift.”

Alastair stared at it, his expression unreadable.

“I see.”

“He says I maimed him, Alastair,” Dean continued, his tone light and conversational. “Says I killed a woman in cold blood. I wonder why he thinks that.”

“As do I,” the sheriff replied.

After a moment, he spoke again.

“You know, you have a choice, Dean.”

“I’m behind bars, Alastair,” he said, fighting the urge to laugh, “about to be hanged. What choice are you talking about?”

When he forced his gaze back towards the sheriff, the man had closed his eyes; his face lapsed in quiet frenzy. It frightened Dean, truly, to look at him, into the man’s sunken face. He had always been strange, unsettling, but Dean had never been afraid of him, even as a child. He had seen men go mad from the sun, from drink, from guilt—but Alastair’s madness had no source—it simply was. How could he not have feared him before? He seemed barely human, now.

“I like the way you say my name,” the sheriff said finally, opening his eyes, “fearful, yet full of reverence. Say it again.”

Dean shook his head, the instinct to again lock himself in shadow almost overpowering him.

“You sick bastard,” he said. “No wonder my dad kicked you out.”

Alastair sighed, then, a nerve having been struck.

“Yes,” he said regrettably, letting go of the bars and having his head rest against them in defeat. “It wounded my pride; I admit it. You were my family, Dean, you all were. Do you know what it’s like to be abandoned by the people you love the most?”

The years preceding his father’s death had seen the whole gang begin to fall away. After he was gone, all Dean had in the world was his brother—and now, in this dark, dank cell—he had no one.

“I have some notion,” he said quietly, his eyes to the floor.

“It was petty of me, really,” Alastair continued. “My mind was clouded, you see. I know it wasn’t my finest moment…”

It was the ramblings of a madman, of thoughts no longer cognisant.

“What are you talking about?” Dean demanded, almost exasperated.

Alastair smiled, then—his eyes aware, and full of glee.

“Did you think it was blind fate Yellow Eyes found your father, and killed him with his own gun?” he asked cruelly.

Dean stared at the sheriff; whose eyes were such a light blue they were almost completely white.

“It was you?” he asked, breathless. He had never truly wondered the circumstances surrounding his father’s death. Maybe he had believed it was blind fate; a simple run of bad luck. John had lost the confidence of his followers, that was true, but they would never have betrayed him—not like that, not like that…

“Like I said,” Alastair said, forcing him from his thoughts, “not my finest moment. I wanted to punish John for casting me out, but I would never have been so crass as to kill him in front of his own sons. I am sorry you had to see that.”

Dean walked over to the bars, took a hold of them, and shook. He screamed at him, like a petulant child, and the pain in his shoulder returned, so sharp it were as if he’d been shot again.

“You son of a bitch!”

“Shh, Dean,” Alastair said. “You’re hurt. Don’t exceed yourself.”

He raised a withered hand to meet Dean’s own, and he wrought it away as if the man carried a contagious disease. For all Dean knew, he could have; he looked dead already, like a spectre from a child’s nightmare.

“Don’t touch me!” he seethed, but Alastair remained unperturbed.

“You have grown into a fine man,” he said softly, desire emerging from him like an animal’s growl. “Strong. Determined. I watched you grow up. I helped turn you into what you are.”

Dean shook his head, his stomach twisting. He was suddenly glad to be in this cell, protected by the steel. It kept him safe from the monster, as long as the door remained closed.

“You’re insane,” he said, for that was all he could do.

Either Alastair agreed, and relished his madness, or he was simply too far gone to understand. He placed his hands back around the bars, and spoke once more slowly, as tender as a lover.

“Say the word, Dean. Say the word and I will free you. I’ll kill the bounty hunter, Henriksen. I’ll kill the whole town if you want. Just ask me.”

“Go to hell,” Dean said lamely.

He so begged for this to be over, for the monster to disappear back in the shadows. Alastair merely nodded.

“I’ll leave you to your thoughts, then,” he said, finally turning to leave. “Plans are in motion for your execution. It will happen two days from now, unless you change your mind. Like I said, you have a choice.”

He left Dean there, panting, his shoulder aching something terrible. Castiel was not there to treat his wound anymore. He had brought him to this place because Dean had been his prisoner, his commodity to be sold. He was alone. Dean would die alone…

Or he could sell his soul to a monster.

He did not know what the sheriff had planned for him if he relented. Had Alastair always been this way, even when Dean was young? Had he always looked at him with those starving eyes? He had remembered that life so fondly the monsters had not existed until he had become a man—but maybe his brother had been right. Maybe the monsters had been there all along.

He settled himself on the cold, hard ground, and slept.


	10. The Hanging of Dean Winchester

Something made Castiel leave the comfort of his room in the Coalfell saloon and make the short walk back to the sheriff’s office. Something made him loiter, instead of knock. Something made him approach the basement window, and listen to every single word.

 _“Say the word, Dean,”_ the sheriff said. _“Say the word and I will free you. I’ll kill the bounty hunter, Henriksen. I’ll kill the whole town if you want. Just ask me.”_

He had returned to his room quickly, and that night he had slept with a gun on his bedside, and a knife beneath his pillow.

This had been just a job, another bounty, but nothing about Dean Winchester, as he had come to realise, was simple. This town wasn’t simple; neither was its sheriff. He slept badly, but dreamless. He tossed and turned, the sheets enclosing him like a coffin. He missed the moon; he missed camping on hard ground, and the sound of trees. He missed the shack where they had slept the past week. He half expected to hear Dean’s snores from across the way, but he heard nothing. Instead it was a deafening, cruel silence, and Castiel lay awake the rest of the night, his hand on the knife beneath his head.

He heard a knock at the door a little after eight. Was it the sheriff, come to murder him? He picked up his pistol from the bedside and cocked it, his finger rested on the trigger as he opened the door.

It was the barman from downstairs, looking grumpy and dishevelled, as if he were just forced from his bed.

“Mr. Novak,” he said, his voice cracked with sleep. “Mr. Novak. Sorry to bother you, sir, but the sheriff asked to speak with you.”

“Is he downstairs?” Castiel asked, the door still ajar.

“No, he went back to the office.”

Castiel nodded, allowing his finger to edge away slowly from the trigger.

There was no one but a child and his mother out on the street as he made his way to the jail. The woman looked at him distrustfully as he passed by, and she took a hold of the boy’s hand as if to shield him. When he approached the door to the sheriff’s office, he knocked twice, and waited.

“Come in,” he heard from behind it.

He kept his revolver holstered in his belt and loaded for good measure. He did not quite know the sheriff’s intentions, but whatever might happen, Castiel was surely a better and faster shot.

“Ah, Castiel,” Alastair said, standing, a hand raised in greeting. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

They shook hands; the sheriff’s was cold, like a corpse.

“Sheriff.”

“Please,” he said, not letting go. “Call me Alastair.”

Castiel smiled quickly without warmth.

“If you insist.”

“I do,” said Alastair, and finally he pulled his hand away. His eyes were a pallid blue, his skin dull and sallow. When he smiled, the skin stretched like leather to accommodate it.

“My deputy has informed me I have you to thank for the capture of Dean Winchester,” he continued jovially. “Those brothers have been a cancer on this land for many years now, and I’ll admit, I left Coalfell with the notion their Wanted poster would remain untouched upon my return. To have Dean in my jail is most surprising, and I do so like to be surprised, Castiel; it does not happen often. This is a mining town, after all. Not much happens here.”

“I did wonder why they would assign a sheriff,” Castiel said carefully. “Wouldn’t your services prove more useful elsewhere?

“Whatever do you mean?” Alastair laughed. “Crime does not discriminate, Castiel; it is everywhere, even in towns as unremarkable as this. Surely you know that?”

 _Just ask me_. The sheriff’s words to Dean echoed in his mind. Castiel nodded.

“I do.”

“Besides,” went on Alastair, “this is good for the town; might even help to put it on the map. Mr. Winchester’s death date has been put in the paper. People will come from all over to watch him hang. I have workers building the gallows as we speak.”

“Good.”

Alastair watched him, studying, patient—like an animal waiting to feed.

“You’re a man of few words, I see,” he said softly after a moment. “I like that. I like _you_ , in fact, very much so. I have great respect for your work, Castiel. I would very much appreciate your services again in the months to come. This town, these people, need to be protected.”

“They do.”

 _From you_ , Castiel thought.

They looked at each other for a moment. He knew Alastair was not a stupid man. His eyes were calculated, his smile controlled. How much did he know, about Castiel, about the brothers Winchester? There was something about him; it swallowed all warmth and light from the room. Castiel needed to get away from it.

“With your permission, Sheriff,” he said, “I’d like to speak with the prisoner.”

Alastair raised his brows in interest.

“About?”

“The whereabouts of his brother are still in question. I’d like to try my luck a final time.”

Alastair chuckled darkly, but shrugged.

“He’ll hang before telling you.”

“Will he?” Castiel asked daringly.

 _Will he really hang?_ That was what he meant to say. He was sure Alastair knew it, too.

The sheriff nodded his approval finally, a glimmer of something in his eye—a halfway state between amusement and loathing. Castiel walked past him and opened the door to the stairs. If the sheriff wished to eavesdrop, he would allow it. He would say nothing that would betray what he had heard from the basement window. But despite his need for carefulness, he wanted to learn of him, of the strange sheriff that seemed to know Dean so well.

He walked down the stairs to Dean’s cell. Despite the sun outside, his form was bathed in shadow.

“Castiel…” he said, sounding surprised. Perhaps he thought they would not see each other again before the noose; that the darkness was to be his only company.

“How are you feeling?”

“Fantastic,” he said, straight-faced. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to interrogate you on your brother’s whereabouts.”

The look on Dean’s face almost made him smile. Castiel closed his eyes and sighed.

“Or… perhaps I’ve come to say goodbye.”

Dean blinked, turning his face away.

“Didn’t think you cared.”

Castiel dallied on his feet a moment, careful, a little awkward. He had to be cautious of what he might say next.

“I spoke with Sheriff White,” he settled finally, noting the way Dean scowled at the sound of his name.

“I’m sure that was illuminating,” he said dryly.

“You and him have history.”

Dean frowned.

“He told you that?”

“Just got the impression,” Castiel said quickly.

Dean looked at him, then to the stairs. After a moment, he nodded.

“Yeah, he rode with the gang, a long time ago.”

“And now he’s sheriff.”

“And now he’s sheriff,” Dean repeated.

This… complicated things, but it made sense all the same.

“Dean…” he started. “Mr. Winchester—”

“Look, would you promise me something?” Dean interrupted.

“What?”

“My horse, Baby. Don’t sell her. Keep her as your own. She’s a fine creature; she’ll serve you well.”

Castiel blinked, his thoughts vanished.

“I… have my own horse,” he said lamely.

“I know,” Dean said. “Just… at the very least make sure _he_ doesn’t get her, Alastair. Please.”

Despite himself, Castiel nodded.

“Okay,” he said.

He tried to find the words, of a right way to ask that would not betray them, but Dean was looking at him strangely, even fighting back a smile.

“What?” Castiel demanded, a little aggressively.

“I look a damn mess, don’t I?” Dean said laughing, running a hand through the scraggly beard that had grown over the last week. “Look, I know I got no right, but if you could visit me again some time, I would ask another favour.”

“What is it?”

He paused.

“Could you bring me a razor?”

“A razor?”

“I don’t mean to hurt myself,” Dean said, smirking. “I just… wanna leave a handsome corpse, that’s all.”

Castiel stared at him again. He was not a simple man; that much was true.

“I’ll try,” he said finally. “Look,” he continued, his eyes to the stairs and of the invisible eyes on them. “I should go.”

“Wait.”

Castiel stopped, his foot on the first step.

“Henriksen, the sheriff,” he heard Dean say from behind the bars. “I have history with both of them. I could have been hanged anywhere, made an example of, but they chose here, in this town no one’s ever heard of. Is that not odd to you?”

It was odd, of course it was. But he could not reveal that to Dean. Maybe he was selfish for it, but it wasn’t safe, not with the sheriff upstairs. He simply shrugged, and sighed.

“It’s not my business to make assumptions.”

“Right,” Dean said, his eyes back on the sliver of light that came through the window. It bathed his face in it, like a glittering jewel. “You’re just looking to get paid.”

* * *

Castiel had slept badly that night, despite the quiet outside and the soft sheets on him. He was unsettled, troubled by the feel of the town, its sheriff, and of Dean. In truth, Dean’s words had bothered him most of all. He had wanted to ask him for the truth, to know everything about his past and how it intertwined with Alastair’s, why it was they had ended up here. He rose early the next morning, and before he’d had the chance to change his mind Castiel found himself walking back to the outlaw’s cell.

A lawman he had not seen before was stationed inside, his head hung back and snoring loudly from his seat at the desk. Castiel saw no need in waking him, so he walked slowly by, his steps silent against the wooden floor.

Dean turned his head at the sound of him. He looked exhausted—undoubtedly he had not slept at all, but found the will to smile regardless.

“You came,” he said, “and you brought the razor.”

Castiel nodded. Now that he was here, he felt a fool.

“Give it here,” said Dean, shuffling towards the bars and holding out his two bound hands.

Castiel obeyed, and Dean set to work. He held the blade awkwardly in his hands, tried to twist and position it. Without a mirror to guide him, his first two strokes were uneven, and the limited movement saw his grip struggle.

Castiel sighed at the view, and stared down at him pointedly.

“Stop,” he said.

“No,” Dean rebutted stubbornly, “I can do it.”

“You’ll cut yourself.”

“I can do it.”

He continued his attempt; a spot of blood forming at the jaw.

“Give it here,” Castiel demanded.

He took a hold of the razor through the bars despite Dean’s grunt of protest, and got to work on the bristles of golden brown hair. He guided the blade against Dean’s skin. His grip was firm, the movement repetitive but never dull, instead comforting in its monotony. He had grown so used to this, touching him, that the act felt easy, natural, like the nights he’d spent with Martha Cuthbert’s son. Just… together, nothing expected of them, nothing to hide. Touching him was not wrong, not in this way. Changing his dressings, mopping his brow, and now, this act of grooming, these were not sinful touches, these were the acts of a doctor, a professional, of something detached and practised. He was not a sinner for touching this man, for feeling his breath on him, steady and warm. He could touch him and still be welcomed into the kingdom of Heaven.

“What will you do once this is over?”

The sound of Dean’s voice shook him to the core, and his grip faltered.

“I’ll… start the hunt for your brother, of course,” he answered, recovering. “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me where he is?”

Dean smiled.

“Not a chance.”

“Can’t say I’m surprised,” Castiel said. “I had… a brother once. You do what you can to protect them.”

He did not like to speak of Jimmy, to even think of him, but he could not help himself.

Dean looked at him pointedly, as if to pry. After a moment, his eyes fell away and he nodded in silent consideration.

“Sam’s a good kid,” he said after a moment. “Man, I should say... Real smart. Always knew he had it in him to do something worthwhile, something important—a doctor, a lawyer, maybe. Really make something of himself. I never told him that, ‘course. Guess I was afraid, afraid of being left behind. Or maybe I was jealous.”

He paused to laugh, the act short and bitter.

“I was never going to amount to much; I know that. Too stupid, too foolhardy. It’s my fault I’m here. He begged me when Father died, begged that we start a new life, somewhere far away where no one knew us. But I… I was so desperate to, I don’t know, live up to the Winchester name, avenge it, punish the law, the rich, anyone who tried to stop me. I thought I had everything I wanted. I thought it was enough. I should have told him different, back there in the clearing. Even then I was so, so fucking _stupid_. I told him to go back so he could find that goddamn gun… I should have… I should have told him to start again. I should have told him to go back to his woman, to forget me.” He sighed; a long, mournful sound. “Goddammit,” he said finally, “I was so stupid.”

Castiel finished with the blade as Dean’s voice faded.

“But I thought you loved the life,” he asked evenly. “I thought being an outlaw was a part of you.”

“I was wrong, all right?” Dean said immediately, refusing to meet his eye. “Can’t a man admit when he’s wrong?”

“Look, Castiel,” he said then, his voice laced in defeat. “I don’t deserve to ask this of you but I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t. After I’m gone, just, just please leave him be. Sammy. Don’t punish him for my mistakes. He’s a good man, and he’ll do good, I know it. Promise me, Cas,” he said. “Promise you’ll leave him alone.”

Castiel did not know what to say. In the silence, Dean reached out to him with his bound hands.

“Say it,” he whispered, and his grip was soft and warm and so very desperate. “Humour me. For God’s sake, just humour me.”

For reasons beyond his knowing, Castiel nodded.

“I promise, Dean,” he said. “I’m not humouring you. I promise. I won’t go looking for him.”

Dean sighed, and closed his eyes.

“Thank you.”

He edged his back against the wooden bench, tilting his head so the half-light caught the line of his jaw. It seemed so sharp now without the golden stubble.

“I just need to rest now, I think,” he said.

Castiel stood awkwardly.

“All right,” he said.

He knew these were his last words to Dean, but he found no profoundness in them, no particular way to say goodbye. Did he think he owed this man something? Did Dean even deserve it?

“Dean?” he found himself saying.

“Yeah?”

But a noise from upstairs quelled him to silence. Perhaps it was the lawman waking, or worse still, the sheriff returned for the morning. He shook his head, and began to walk away. As he left his cell, the man spoke a final time.

“It was good to know you, Cas,” he said. “The man behind the name. Somehow I think we became friends, didn’t we?”

Castiel found the words. The truth:

“I think we did, too.”

* * *

The day of the hanging saw the sun hidden behind clouds. Castiel awoke to a sound most unfamiliar since arriving at Coalfell. It was the sound of voices, of horses hooves and coach wheels. It was the sound of activity, of excitement. People had come to the small mining town, from far and wide—the outlaw’s name bewitching as a siren’s song. They wanted to watch him hang, watch him die; watch him buried in an unmarked grave.

Castiel would watch, too. He had not the mind to see Mr. Winchester suffer, it was not his way—but it was only right he be there, to see the job done. He had given Dean his word he would not hunt his brother. Once Dean was dead, he would be finished with the Winchesters forever. Would Sam do well with his life as Dean had promised? Would Castiel be punished for turning his back on the contract he had been given? He did not know. The past week had changed something in him, blurred the meaning in the words of his listed code. It was not his secret anymore. Dean had known of it, and surely many others did as well. There was only one person who could have told them. He would seek him out, perhaps, after it was over. He would ask him for the truth—and then he would disappear.

Castiel dressed simply, packed the little belongings he had, and left for the hanging. The roads were still busy with people, but they were travelling with purpose now, to a dry patch of earth a few yards behind the sheriff’s office. Before he followed, he went over to the horses hitched outside the saloon. His own grey steed nuzzled his cheek as he fed him. Baby, Dean’s Arabian, eyed him blankly as she waited her turn. He would honour the man’s promise. He would take her with him, and sell her to someone reputable, someone who would… appreciate her. She was a beautiful creature, it was true, and despite his abstemiousness Castiel had a weakness for beautiful things.

He made his way down the street, behind the last of the eager crowd. The builders had worked quickly; the gallows stood tall and new on a raised platform. Henriksen and another lawman stood beside it, guns in hand. There was talk amongst the people. Seemingly everyone in the town and strangers, too, had come to bear witness. Even the miners, whose faces were slick with grime and breaths rattling with decay, had been allowed from the caves. Castiel stood at the back, eager for it to be done.

After a minute, the back door of the sheriff’s office opened and Dean came through it, his hands still bound, the bullet wound in his shoulder secreting blood. He had a sack on his head, and his steps were clumsy. He seemed in pain, of something new, freshly inflicted. Sheriff Alastair White followed behind him, a gaunt hand on his back, guiding Dean’s steps. The crowd booed and hollered as Dean made his way to the platform. At the steps he tripped, the action leaving a smirk on the deputy’s face, and a cruel look in the sheriff’s eyes. The crowd were laughing and jeering, shouting odious words at the man they did not know, but hated anyway.

The faceless outlaw awaited his fate at the top of the platform. Castiel watched him, barely breathing. The sheriff took off his hood slowly, teasing, almost. Castiel did not like the way he touched him, of the way his fingers blackened under the clouded sun. Castiel was overcome, a kind of animal’s fury, as close to the surface as a second skin. As the hood came off, the fury dissipated, and it was like staring at Dean the first time—before he’d known him, when he was just a job, just another sinner to be punished. Only it wasn’t the first time. He had looked at Dean a thousand times since capturing him, heard his stories, his truth, watched him sleep, the way he reacted to Castiel’s touch as he’d been treated. He had known Dean strong enough to tend to himself, but he had done it anyway, seen, in the corner of his eye, the way Dean’s cock had stirred and hardened as he changed the bind. Castiel closed his eyes. It was wrong, these thoughts he had. He was wicked for them.

Castiel was brought back, his thoughts interrupted by the sound of Alastair’s voice ringing through the crowd.

“Our people laboured,” he addressed them grandly, “built these gallows of wood, so we could kill a man before you, before God, for the crimes he has committed. Dean Winchester is a conman, and a thief. He is a killer of women, of law officials, and of decent, God-fearing men.” Alastair smiled at this. Perhaps Castiel was the only one who saw it, the abandon, the gleeful, quiet madness beneath. He had offered Dean his freedom, so surely a part of him did not want him dead. But the look in his eyes was something so strange, yet familiar, and Castiel was brought back to the night of the storm—his father’s eyes a faded evil as they watched him slowly choke between his hands.

“His reign of terror is over,” Alastair continued slowly, forcing Castiel from his reveries once again. “He gets what he deserves. And now, good people of Coalfell, of Shady Oak and beyond, you can finally pay witness to justice!”

He looked over at Dean, who was staring straight ahead above the crowd, as if they were not there.

“Any last words, Mr. Winchester?”

It was then; Dean steadied his glance, and looked Castiel straight in the eye.

 _“Non timebo mala,”_ he said, unblinking. “I am not afraid.”

Something changed then, an absolution, a closing of space, a breath so sharp there was power in it.

The lever was pulled, and the floor was released—and before the noose could tighten a shot ran through the air, an ancient sound, sharp and final.

The rope around Dean’s neck severed. He fell to the ground, landed on his knees heavily.

The crowd screamed and hollered, and began to separate. It wasn’t until a woman at Castiel’s side saw his gun outstretched and shrieked, falling into the arms of her husband, that he even realised the shot was his.

_“No!”_

It was Henriksen—readying his gun at the sprawled figure beneath the gallows. Castiel shot again, his actions separate from his mind. The bullet pierced the deputy’s hand; the pistol flying, bone and cartilage falling like rain. Castiel shot the other lawman through the leg and he buckled into a heap. The crowd were fleeing. These were not heroes seeking justice, merely vultures, scattering to the wind now their meal was compromised. Castiel pushed himself through them, his eyes on nothing but Dean, who was dragging himself away despite the deputy’s shattered remnant of a hand grasping at him desperately. Castiel grabbed Victor’s shoulder, threw him off, picked up his pistol and the other lawman’s rifle. He grabbed Dean by the scruff of his collar and dragged him towards the road.

“Shoot him!” the deputy begged the sheriff as he sunk to his knees. “Alastair! What are you doing? _Don’t let him escape!_ ”

But Alastair was laughing.

He was stood, alone on his mighty platform, armed and uninjured. He had all the power in the world. If only he rose his pistol hand and fired—but he did not. He only laughed.

They heard him laughing as they ran into the street, as they got on their horses, and rode through the panicking crowd.

They could still hear him laughing as they disappeared; their trail swallowed by the wide expanse.


	11. Welcome Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the hiatus guys. My life has been incredibly busy the last few months, and I have precious little free time as it is, but I have to remind myself that I'm allowed to take a break for my hobbies every now and again!!!

He did not dream silently. His sleep was marred, and when he awoke his body was heavy, with pain set deeply behind his eyes.

“How’s your head?”

It was a voice Sam did not recognise, and he had to blink several times before the figure before him came into focus. She was a young woman; her deep-set eyes the shade of coal. Her brown hair was worn loose and coiled against her shoulders in soft curls, much like the way Jess’s did. But this woman was not Jess.

They were in a tent, the fabric a deep, thick crimson so Sam could not tell if it were day or night. The pain behind his eyes intensified, and when he tried to lift himself, a wave of nausea pinned him to the ground and left the room spinning.

“Where’s Jessica?” he forced himself to say, swallowing the spit forming itself in pools.

“She’s fine,” was all the woman said. “How are you feeling?”

“Where’s Jessica?” he said again.

She sighed, but kept her tone mild.

“She’s here in camp, same as you,” she said. “She’s fine,” the woman repeated. Then, kinder: “I’m sorry they had to hit you.”

That’s right. Before he’d blacked out, he’d taken a blow to the skull. Right after they’d shot Bobby in both kneecaps and left him for dead. There was no way he could have survived it, if not the blood loss, then of the beasts that lived on the mountain. They would have followed that stench of iron, taken a bite while he was still warm.

It was his fault. Bobby was old and bitter, but at least he’d been safe. Sam had forced him from his respite, and now he was dead. Bobby Singer could not refuse a Winchester. It was their family’s curse, that call of loyalty. Sam did not deserve it.

“Let me see her, please.”

He was drifting, his reality shading before his eyes. He needed to remember where he was, and who was counting on him. He needed to see Jessica, if only to determine she was still real.

“No,” the woman said, standing. “You need time to rest. You both do.”

“Let me see her!” he cried after. The nausea rose again and bile spilled from his mouth. He emptied himself on to the tent floor and had to stop himself from sobbing.

“Goddamn you!”

“Raphael,” was all he heard as she disappeared through the opening.

A man emerged from it, with big, wide-set eyes, and a quietly menacing expression. He held in his hand a bottle. Sam moaned and shook his head as Raphael loosened the lid.

“What are you doing?” he asked weakly. “Stop,” he said, as Raphael rose the bottle and held it to his mouth. “Stop!”

He forced Sam’s mouth open, and the bitter taste saw itself down his throat.

Sam thought he would vomit again. But instead, he closed his eyes, and was once again met with violent dreams.

* * *

When he opened his eyes, the bitter taste in his mouth remained, but the pain from before was gone. Now, he was floating, floating somewhere far away. He liked the feeling. He liked feeling empty, like a shell. He would float forever, if it weren’t for the woman staring at him from across the room.

“You…”

It was the same woman as before; the one who had ordered the man with the bottle to make him float. Only, he wasn’t floating anymore. The feeling in his fingers and toes were returning, and he could feel everything. Feel his heaviness, his solidity, the pain behind his eyes. He was still in the crimson tent, he realised. He was still a prisoner of Azazel Masters.

“I’m Ruby,” the woman said. She held out a flask in front of her, shaking it gently. “Here, drink this.”

“What is it?” he asked.

“It’s just water,” she said. “You’ve been out for some time; you’re dehydrated.”

“That’s ‘cause you fucking drugged me.”

Ruby gave him a look, but did not lower her hand.

“It was just to make you sleep. Please, Sam, drink.”

He didn’t want to trust a thing out of her mouth, to take anything she might offer him. But Ruby was right; his mouth was so dry he couldn’t even swallow.

“Where’s Jessica?” he forced himself to say, his voice cracking with effort.

“I can bring her to you, but first, drink.”

He would have thrown the flask from her hand if he’d had the energy, but Sam was beat, and before he could change his mind, he had taken the flask from her and allowed himself a lengthy gulp. It was the best drink of water he’d ever had.

Once he’d emptied the bottle, he was able to think again.

“What do you people want from me?” he asked tiredly. “From us?”

Ruby looked away uneasily.

“It’s not my place to say.”

“Why are you even here?” he demanded then, childishly.

“Azazel asked me to look after you,” the girl replied, just as belligerently.

“No,” Sam said. “Not in this tent. I mean here, with him. Did he capture you too?”

“Azazel saved me,” Ruby said. “Really, he did. He saved all of us.”

Sam laughed unkindly.

“If that’s what you wanna call it…”

“He doesn’t expect you to understand,” Ruby said, her tone defensive, “not yet. But you will.”

Sam looked into her dark eyes, trying a final time:

“I want to see Jessica.”

“Fine,” she relented. “Wait here.”

The five minutes he spent alone in the tent stretched out until it had lasted a hundred years. Sam was still too weak to stand, still thirsty and in pain, but the thought of seeing Jessica again was enough to keep him from passing out.

When she appeared from behind the curtain, it was like staring at her for the first time. She was so beautiful, in such a specific, haunting way, he could still not be sure if he was looking at a painting and not blood and flesh.

She reached down and touched his face. Thank God, it was not a cruel trick; she truly did exist. He melted into her caress, kissing every inch of her hand.

“Jess,” he said between pecks. “Oh, Jess. I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”

He looked at her again, and noted the cut above her eye, sealed shut with thin black thread.

“What did they do to you?” he reached out, afraid to touch it in fear of hurting her.

“This?” she motioned plaintively. “They didn’t hurt me. I fell trying to escape. One of the girls stitched me up.”

He kissed her slowly.

“I don’t know how,” he whispered as the kiss broke off, “but I’ll take you away from here. I promise.”

“Sam,” she said sadly. “They’re never gonna let you go.”

“Then I’ll kill them all,” he said. “I’m so sorry, Jess.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“It is,” he countered. “I never should have… I never should have let you get close to me. He was watching me the whole time. Just waiting. Jess, your father…”

“Azazel let him be,” Jess said. “He said he wouldn’t be harmed.”

“You think he’s telling the truth?”

“I don’t know, Sam,” she sighed. “All I know is he’s been waiting for you for a long time.”

“All right, time to go.”

Ruby had appeared from behind the curtain, shattering their privacy in a single moment. She took a hold of Jessica’s shoulders and lifted her up. Sam raised his hand desperately.

“No, wait,” he pleaded.

“The boss wants to talk with you alone,” Ruby said without sympathy. “You’ll see each other soon.”

“I’ll be fine, Sam,” Jess said, giving him a sad little smile as she was led out.

“Jessica,” he called after her. “I love you."

But she was already gone.

* * *

He visited him shortly after, the man with the yellow eyes.

“Sammy,” Azazel said, crouching, so they could look at each other as equals. “It’s good to see you awake. Can you stand? Walk with me.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

Azazel merely smiled. He holstered his position so he was sat cross-legged on the floor.

“Fine. We can chat here.”

Sam could do nothing but glare, his murderous thoughts betraying him. If he could, he would gouge those yellow eyes right out of the man’s skull.

“I know this must feel very strange,” Azazel began, speaking softly, “and I know you must still be angry, and I’m sorry we shot your brother and your friend, and I’m sorry we had to take you and your woman so far away. But it had to be like this.”

He could not stand it, this feigned benevolence.

“If you want to kill me,” Sam said plainly, “just do it.”

Azazel looked at him strangely.

“Kill you?” he asked. “Why would I do that?”

He got up, then, not allowing Sam an answer.

“I want to show you something,” he said. “Oblige me this one thing, please. I don’t want to have to hurt you again.”

Despite himself, Sam wanted out of that tent. His joints were stiff and were begging for movement. He did not wish Azazel to think he had any kind of power over him, but he could not help himself. He was restless, and he was curious. So he followed Azazel out into the open air.

Despite the setting sun, the light hit his eyes harshly after his bouts of unconsciousness. He squinted, looking around himself at the camp. It was modestly set, much like the camps John used to place. There were various tents for sleeping, as well as tables and chairs scattered about. A hovel had been erected for cooking and storing game, and in the middle was a fire, roaring warm and comforting. The man who had handed Sam the Colt, the man who seemed aged beyond his years, was playing a melancholy tune on his guitar. As Sam and Azazel walked by, he looked up from his fingers and gave Sam a look. Not a cruel look, no; something inquisitive, something searching. Before Sam had a chance to figure what, he had looked away and was staring back at the strings.

There was a tent west of the camp, grander and larger than the others. Azazel pulled apart the curtain and led Sam inside. There was a wooden cabinet beside the camp bed, and Azazel bent over and opened the top drawer. When he pulled his hand away, he was holding something: a necklace of sorts.

“This amulet belonged to your mother.”

It was a simple thing, a golden brass face tied to black cord. The face was horned and wreathed with tribal adornment. It seemed foreign and strange, but there seemed a power to it all the same.

“Was that your trophy for killing her?” Sam asked Azazel bitterly.

Azazel looked back at the amulet, stroked its still face.

“She gave it to me.”

Sam blinked.

“My mother wouldn’t give you anything.”

“Sammy, Sammy, Sammy…” the man sighed, pity in his voice, “your father hated me for what happened. I understand that, of course I do, so I don’t blame him for lying.”

“What are you talking about?” Sam demanded. He hated this, the way in which Azazel was speaking to him, the soft look in his eye, of tenderness, of quiet patience. He wanted Azazel to hurt him again, so he would know his hatred for him was justified.

In answer, Azazel smiled.

“Did you know I was there when you were born?” he asked. “Mary was living with me in my camp. I delivered you. I held you in my arms.”

“ _Liar_.”

The pain was coming back, threatening to floor him. He was dizzy, desperate to hold out his arms to steady himself, but he could not appear weak; he could not be defeated by this man and his lying tongue.

“I loved her, Sam,” he heard Azazel say. He felt a hand on his face. “By rights, you should be my son.”

So, this was it, was it, a twisted delusion of love? Azazel had loved his mother, and so Azazel loved him. But he was stolen and raised by another, so Azazel killed the imposter and took him back home.

How could he comprehend any of this? Azazel was a murderer. How could he have loved Mary, and killed her as well? Sam tried to speak, but he was floating again. He tried to steady himself, and in doing so, he took Azazel’s hand.

“I want you to have this,” he heard Azazel say. “It’s what she’d want.”

“Is this why you brought me here?” Sam found himself saying, despite feeling so far away and weightless. “So we could be a family?”

He sounded almost hopeful. He couldn’t understand why.

“You’re lonely,” said Azazel, “and you’re brilliant. The others, John, Dean, they couldn’t comprehend that, and they punished you for it—but not me. Sam, I want you to know that your brother’s alive.”

_Dean… Dean’s alive…_

He felt the lure of oblivion calling for him, but he willed himself to stay.

“How…?” he whispered. “How do you know?”

“Here.”

Azazel passed him a segment of paper, the headline, “ **DEAN WINCHESTER EVADES EXECUTION** ,” in block letters big enough for even his hazy vision to comprehend.

“They were going to hang him,” Azazel said, “but he got away. Lucky how things turn out.”

“He’ll… come looking for me,” Sam forced himself to say, black spots appearing before his eyes.

“Will he, after you abandoned him?”

Sam could not answer this, could not even ponder Azazel’s words, for the lure of insentience had taken him once again. Only this time he dreamed of faces, horned and blank-faced, and screaming.

* * *

He slept for two nights, only waking for water and to cry out Jessica’s name.

On the fourth day, he was lucid, and could hold down a meal.

On the fifth day, he was visited by the man with the sad, searching eyes.

“Sam,” he said, his tone polite, his voice tempered. “My name is Nick. I want you to take a ride with me.”

Sam’s beautiful sand-coloured horse was waiting for him in the clearing as Nick got on his own pale mare.

“He’s been fed and watered,” Nick assured. “In much better shape than you, I’m sure.”

Sam managed to hoist himself up, albeit unsteadily. Bones neighed happily as Sam stroked a hand through his thick, unkempt mane.

“You’re still hazy from the opiates,” Nick said from beside him as they set off through the woods. “The ride should clear your head a little.”

“Where are we going?” Sam asked warily.

Nick’s horse was saddled with a rifle, with his own weapon strapped firmly to his side.

“Just forward,” Nick said.

They travelled for thirty minutes. That was how long it took for them to leave the wood behind. Eventually they came across open fields of golden grass that glittered under the midday sun. This was not an area Sam recognised, and there did not appear to be any towns or homesteads that he could see. Azazel had chosen his camp wisely, far enough away from prying eyes—but close enough to watch them.

“Out here we work for our supper,” Nick said then, slowing his horse to a halt. “I figure you’re a good shot.”

He unstrapped the rifle from his mount, and handed it to him.

Sam blinked.

“You’d trust me with a loaded gun?”

Nick gave him a quick smile, devoid of warmth or irony.

“Azazel said you can follow orders just fine.”

The last time Sam held a gun, he had aimed it at Bobby’s head, and he’d fired—just as Azazel had asked him to.

He was not a slave, nor a boy to be ordered. He cocked the rifle, and aimed it at the place between Nick’s eyes.

The man only shrugged.

“Remember what he told you.”

It was enough for his hand to falter. Of course he remembered. If he killed Nick, he was signing Jess’s death warrant. He would escape. He would take her with him—only not today, not so hastily. He would have to be a pliant child, if only for the moment.

He lowered the gun, as Nick knew he would, and they continued on. They stopped a few minutes further when Nick held up his hand.

“Deer. Up ahead.”

They dismounted their horses and continued on foot, careful to remain downwind. The deer was eating grass, ignorant of their presence. Sam crouched, and raised the rifle.

“Quiet,” Nick said from behind him, “Take aim. A clear shot to the heart. Breathe in. Steady.”

In a moment, the deer would be dead, its mouth still full of the golden grass. Its heart stilled before it heard the shot. It would be dead. Gone. Its existence wiped from the world—never to matter again.

And then a scream erupted from the eastern trees, and the deer bolted.

“What was that?” Sam asked urgently, the scream so loud it had spooked their horses, who were whinnying anxiously behind them.

There was another scream. Louder. Nick got to his feet and walked quickly towards the animals, his hands raised in order to calm them.

“Over there, in the woods,” he said to Sam.

They got back on their horses, and began to ride.

The screams were getting louder, and more voices were becoming clearer as they entered the eastern woods: angry, hoarse voices, yelling savagely, tauntingly. There was laughter, but not a joke shared between friends, but a conquest about to be taken.

There were men in the clearing, and there was a woman. Her bodice was torn and her face was bleeding, and she was pleading with the men to kill her rather than to take her dignity.

In that moment, Sam and Nick knew what to do. They raised their weapons, and gunned the men down like animals, rabid and wild. The woman screamed again, falling to the ground and covering her face in anguish. Surely, she thought they were there to kill her too, but as they approached, Nick took off his jacket, and placed it around the woman’s shoulders.

She looked up from the dirt floor, her body shaking so hard she could barely see.

“Are you all right?” Sam asked her.

She did not answer, but she did look at the corpses of the men spewed indecorously in a heap beside her. At the sight of them, she braved.

“They took me from my farm,” she said slowly. “Shot our livestock. They were gonna…”

Nick brought her to her feet.

“Shh,” he said kindly. “You’re safe now. We can take you home.”

But the woman wasn’t sure. At the sight of their weapons she began to back away.

“You can trust us,” Sam promised. “Here, take our guns. We’ll be at your mercy—deal?”

It was as much an offer to Nick as it was to the woman. Nick nodded after a moment’s deliberation, and the two men handed their weapons over.

The woman rode on the front of Nick’s horse, only speaking to aid with directions. After a careful ride through the forest, avoiding the trees and bushels, they emerged on another field, where a homestead stood further out.

They rode a few minutes more, until the sight of animal carcasses littered their view. It was the height of summer, and the flies had already settled in droves, relishing the feast.

“This is it,” the woman said, letting herself down. “Thank you, misters. You saved my life and my dignity.”

“Take this,” said Nick, fishing in his saddlebag and unveiling a purse heavy with coin. “Should be enough to get your farm up and running again.”

The woman took it, tears welling in her eyes.

“You are an angel, sir. Both of you.”

They watched the woman return home, reunite with her elderly mother, who cried so hard at the vision her wails echoed the sky.

“That was very kind,” Sam said after a while. At this point, the sun was starting to set.

“Are you surprised?” asked Nick. “You thought Azazel’s men were all killers and rapers that spat on God?”

Sam almost laughed.

“Something like that,” he said. “How long have you been with Azazel?”

“A couple years. He took me in after… after I lost my way.”

It was similar to the way the dark-haired girl had worded it. Sam found himself scowling.

“You all seem to revere him so. Ruby said he saved her.”

“He saved me, too. If it weren’t for Azazel I’d be dead.”

“You’ve always been an outlaw, I take it?”

Nick shook his head.

“No, sir,” he said solemnly. “Two years ago I had a wife and child who loved me. We lived in a house I had built for them. I worked honest, and I worked hard. I’d come home at the end of the day, and Sarah would be waiting for me with a home cooked meal, and my baby would be smiling, and raising his arms to be held. I… lost them,” he said, his voice trailing away.

After a moment, he shook his head.

“No,” he deliberated. “Someone took them from me.”

“What happened?”

“One night, I didn’t go straight home. The guys and I were celebrating some redundant fancy I can’t even remember. I got piss-drunk. Barely managed to stumble home. When I got there, the plate laid out for me had been eaten. I figured Sarah hadn’t let it go to waste, and I felt bad. I didn’t drink often nor spontaneously, and I wanted to apologise. I went upstairs, checked on Teddy. He looked so peaceful I didn’t dare approach, so I got into our bed, and before I could apologise to Sarah I passed out. I… I slept for ten hours with my wife and child dead beside me.”

Sam swallowed. He was apprehensive as to what he was about to ask next.

“How did they die?”

“I woke up the next morning,” Nick said, his voice almost a whisper, “and when I kissed her, her skin was ice, and she was stiff and sunken. I saw the marks on her neck… When I checked on Teddy, I realised he didn’t look peaceful at all, but red and swollen and…” His voice caught in his throat, and Nick made a sound so full of pain Sam almost begged him to stop. But Nick quieted. He took in a breath, steady and restrained, and when he spoke again it was of something different. Like another man had crawled down inside him and was wearing his skin.

“Someone had come into our home and strangled the life right out of them, and after he was done, he had gone downstairs, and eaten at our table like an honoured guest.”

Sam was floored. He could not comprehend such horrors, and he felt useless when he could not think of nothing else to say but, ‘I’m sorry.’

They continued riding, the night sky enveloping them completely, made darker still by the trees.

“I tried so hard to find justice,” Nick finally said, as the light of Azazel’s fire came into view. “To catch the man that killed my family. Once I realised I couldn’t, I tried to join them. Azazel found me. Cut me down. And here I am.”

“They never caught him?” Sam asked anxiously.

“Oh, he’s still out there,” Nick replied simply. “I know he is. One day, I will find him. Azazel promised me. One day I will have justice.”

Their return was met with the smiling face of the yellow-eyed man. At the sight of their empty backs, Azazel raised his brows.

“No game?” he asked.

“It got away from us, sorry, Az,” Nick said as he dismounted. “We’ll try again tomorrow.”

“No bother,” came Azazel’s silky reply, “we have enough to fill our bellies for one more night. How was he, Nick?"

Nick looked at Sam with eyes so much sadder now Sam knew the pain behind them. Nick said one word:

“Surprising.”

* * *

“Jess!”

Sam had eaten a meal of rabbit stew in his tent, been lulled to drowsiness by the sound of Nick’s guitar, but the sight of Jessica immediately alerted him.

She buried herself in his arms and kissed him.

“They said I could sleep here,” she said, with the same excitement he had not seen since leaving her father’s ranch.

“Sam,” she said, pulling away, “they’re not… they’re not how I imagined. The girls, they’ve been kind to me. How was your ride with Nick? Ruby says he’s a good man, but marred by tragedy. She says he lost his family.”

 _Nick didn’t lose his family_ , Sam thought to himself. _Someone took them from him._

Instead, he nodded.

“You’re right, Jess,” he said. “They’re not how I imagined. But that doesn’t mean Yellow Eyes can be trusted.”

“We don’t have to trust him,” countered Jess, “We just have to please him. You did well today; Nick likes you. He’s second-in-command, you know. His say is the reason I’m allowed in your tent.”

Sam smiled.

“Then let us thank him.”

He undressed her slowly, kissed every inch, from her neck to the sweetness between her thighs. She tasted like every good thought he’d ever had; her moans were an answered prayer.

Jessica was his high, his greatest treasure. As he slid himself inside her, she wrapped her legs around him and held him close. Close enough so that they forgot everything else.


End file.
